OCS
by Set and Drift
Summary: Sam Beckett leaps into an young man at Naval Officer Candidate School. A classmate will quit and ruin his own life unless Sam can get him to stick it out. Finally finished posting!
1. Prologue

**OCS**

**Prologue**

July 1998  
Pensacola, FL

The sounds of shouting swirled in the void around him and he flinched instinctively. The chaos made him apprehensive. Landing in the middle of an emergency was always hard to adjust to and it took a while for his environment to "settle" around him. As bright sunlight shone on his face, the noises tightened and the resulting words left him more confused than ever.

"...three, four, five, six, seven, four-three. One, two, three, four..."

There were roughly ten or twenty voices, all seemingly male at first, but, upon closer attention, he thought he heard a woman or two in the mix. Some people were yelling whereas others were breathless and subdued.

Vision finally snapped together and Sam found himself with his arms raised above his head, standing in the grass on what was apparently a stifling summer's day in what felt like the equator. He lowered his arms and glanced to either side to see people dressed in some kind of uniform, doing jumping jacks and then throwing themselves to the ground to do pushups, then popping back up again to repeat the process.

_Why do I have a bad feeling about this...?_

A shadow fell across him and he glanced up to look the man who faced him off in the eye. Which was his first mistake. He caught a glimpse of camouflage clothing, and the man lowered his face to a spot inches away from Sam's own and started yelling. "What, you don't want to play with the rest of your shipmates? Well! **Well!**" Before Sam could respond (which could only have been another mistake), the man turned away and yelled, "Pushups!"

A chorus of "Pushups, aye, sir!" rose up around him and everyone fell to the ground and started pumping.

"Well?" his tormentor demanded when he was slower than the rest getting down. Even when not screaming, the man's voice was hard and intimidating and had a rough edge to it, like rocks in a blender. "They're going to keep going until you can do fifty of them without stopping. Lazy, lethargic thing," he added scornfully as Sam started his appointed task.

"Oh, boy..." he whispered to the grass.


	2. Chapter 1

**OCS**

**Chapter 1**

July 1998  
Pensacola, FL

How Sam managed to get back up to the Academics room was beyond him. He fumbled along in what he hoped was a passable excuse for marching (although he stopped a half pace too early when the call, "Platoon, halt," was given).

The Section Leader, whose nametag identified him as Holguin, turned to face them and Sam heard him call, "Columns of files, from the right," and then the echo of, "Forward! Stand fast!" and shook his head. He still hadn't figured all this out and he hoped Al would make his appearance...and fast. Al knew more about this than Sam himself did and he was afraid of misstepping and getting them all in trouble. As the command indicated, the right column began moving forward, Sam noted, in step. With an inward sigh, he followed the rest of the khakis in front of him, up the front steps and into the building. Once inside, the feel of the other people around him relaxed and they even exchanged a few words amongst themselves as they filed up the stairs, still walking in line on the right side of the hallway, but no longer in step. He had the feeling this building was some sort of sanctuary and he felt incredibly grateful.

They went into the second classroom on the right on the second floor of the building and Sam hazarded a glance at his own nametag: Foster. As people began to sift to their seats, he noted black bags under each desk and, breathing silent thank-you to the military's obsessive-compulsive nature in putting names on everything, he scanned the room until he found his bag in the back left corner. Finally, he actually had a leap where everyone **did** wear nametags!

"Let's take five and I'll go find our instructor," Holguin said mildly and the movement of the crowd shifted again as some people left the room to get water or, no doubt, make a bathroom break. Sam sat in his seat and started sifting through the bag, hoping for more of a clue.

"Hey, Sam, why don't you take a head call," Al said suddenly from behind him and he jumped reflexively.

"That was some lunch, huh, Foster?" a woman said almost simultaneously and he turned to see a young woman at the desk next to him with the last name Simms smiling at him as she pulled her own materials from her bag. Like everyone else, her cotton khaki uniform hung loosely on her body, an indicator of weight lost by all since arriving, Sam supposed. She wasn't pretty, but that may have been in part to her flushed complexion and the brown hair that was cropped closely to her head, making her look almost masculine from behind. But under dark eyebrows, chocolate brown eyes looked up at Sam. The smile was in her eyes, but forced; underneath them, Sam saw the one thing that ensured survival here: determination.

He made a face. "Oh, yeah, it was great," he said, his words heavy with sarcasm.

"Outstanding," she laughed, as if at some private joke. "I hate it when they try to do Mexican."

"Sam," Al prompted, starting to get a little impatient and he was suddenly aware of the time he was losing.

"Tell me about it," Sam continued. "I'll be back," he added, squirming from his seat to escape into the hallway. The general traffic seemed to be heading further down the hallway and to the left and he heard his partner sigh heavily beside him.

"You'll probably miss a few minutes of class. I'm sure it's crowded in there right now, but we need to talk."

On that, they completely agreed.

Sam walked down the hall and finally secured a stall where he waited for most of the other occupants to vacate the restroom. Or, he supposed, it was a head.

He knew any number of different languages, but the foreign language of the military was one he had yet to master. That's what Al was for.

"Al, what kind of hell am I in?" he demanded of his partner in a low hiss, trying to dispel his anger.

Al was unflappable. "You're in the stimulating environment of training for the United States Navy."

"Ha, ha." Sam folded his arms and faced the admiral. "And what was that incredibly large man in camouflage? The welcoming wagon?"

Al shook his head, smiling slightly. "You're at Officer Candidate School, OCS to the initiated. And you've leaped into week 2 of a 13 week course. Just be thankful you got to forgo week one."

Sam thought back to the number of times he'd been reprimanded in the cafeteria for using incorrect procedures and his heart fell. "Don't tell me it was any worse than this."

He shrugged slightly. "I went to the Academy, so I don't know too much about OCS except what my shipmates from API told me."

"API?" _And so it begins..._

"Don't worry about it, Sam. All you need to worry about is what's going on here, now. OCS is designed to toss the four years I went through into 13 weeks." He paused, as if reluctant to admit to his next comment, but then added, "And they do a pretty good job of it."

"Swell. Just give me the details, please?" He slumped against the wall of the stall, hoping he wouldn't have to spend the next 12 weeks as Foster. He didn't think he could take this environment for that long.

"It's Thursday, July 16th, 1998 and you're in Pensacola, Florida. Your name is Andreas Foster and you applied for OCS back in April of 1997, but it's taken this long to get processed and accepted for what you - Foster - wanted to do," Al informed him, shaking the 'link when it slowed the supply of information. "You got your Bachelors Degree from Georgia Tech in engineering, but then suddenly became interested in the military after only a year and a half working in the civilian world. Your designator (your job, basically) is nuclear submarine - sub nuc - and you're engaged and marry a week after graduating OCS."

Sam wiped a hand across his face. "That's all great, Al, but what am I doing here?"

He lowered the handlink and studied Sam with dark eyes and the scientist knew what was coming next. "Well, we don't...know, exactly. But Ziggy's working on it and as soon as we know anything..." He made a gesture with his free hand and offered a small smile. "In the meantime-"

"In the meantime," Sam interrupted, "I have no clue what to do or how to act. Al, they have every little detail of what to do ordered for them and I have no idea what those details are."

"Just avoid camouflage," Al joked. Sam just glared. "Okay, look, the guy who's got the smokey bear and does all the yelling is your Drill Instructor. Don't, whatever you do, call him a Drill Sergeant. This is **not** _Officer and a Gentleman_, okay? This is reality and he's a real Marine. And, trust me, you don't want to mess with a Marine. I'll dig up a bio for you and some procedures and get them to you as soon as possible so you can try and fit in more. That's the key at places like this: don't stand out. Blend."

"It'd be easier to blend if I knew what I was doing," he groused, but it was half-hearted.

Al dropped the link to his side. "Sam, you're only week two in training. You're going to get abuse no matter what you do. You're the junior class on deck, still. You've got the drill instructors and the most senior class to contend with and you're all still pretty hosed up." He grinned. "You've got a ways to go before you're as squared away as me."

"Please don't talk Navy at me," Sam pleaded.

Al chuckled. "No problem. I'll go hurry Ziggy along and try to be back in, oh, two niner minutes."

"Al..."

"Hey, pal, you'd better get used to it." He opened the silvery door to the future and stepped backwards into it until it engulfed his extremities. Then he saluted and punched a button on the handlink and it slid shut.

Sam held back another sigh with incredible restraint and then slipped out of the stall and back to the classroom where he found they were already deeply engrossed in the intricacies of Naval History. Simms leaned towards him and whispered, "Holguin waited as long as he could for you. Did you get lost?"

He just grinned and shrugged, trying to avoid her eyes, and lost himself in the history of John Paul Jones.

October 2000  
Stallions Gate, NM

Al exited the Imaging Chamber and tossed the 'link on the console, humming slightly. The kind of environment Sam was stuck in was indeed hell and, though Al had no desire of any kind to even remotely revisit his plebe days, it did call to mind a curious kind of nostalgia. There was something unique about experiencing something like that, of proving to yourself you could do it. And it bonded people in ways surpassed in meaning only by experiences such as POW camps.

But that was **definitely** a road he didn't care to walk again, even if only in memory.

"Gooshie, have Ziggy call up all the data you've got on OCS - procedures, curriculum, staff, etc. Let's get some information to Sam before he has to go to dinner with this crew, okay?"

The small scientist nodded jerkily and started inputting requests into the terminal. Al shook his head vaguely and wandered down the hallway to the Waiting Room where Verbena was just exiting. "Admiral," she greeted him formally, but her smile was bright and amused.

"How's our guest?" he asked her, fingering an unlit cigar, more from habit than addiction.

She sighed and shook her head, pulling back the clipboard she had clutched to her chest to get a better look at it. "Incredible! He won't look me in the eye and every time I ask him a question, I think he's going to pass out. Where on earth is Sam - a torture chamber?"

Al's laugh was wry. "Sam thinks so."

She raised an eyebrow. _So?_

He shrugged slightly. "The officer equivalent of boot camp," he responded and then tucked the cigar into his mouth, sucking on it thoughtfully.

Her facial response was instantaneous and apparent. "Oh, Al, you know how much I disapprove of those types of institutions!" Al widened his eyes at her, transmitting his surprise at her blunt comments to him. "You know what I mean," she continued, eyeing her notations on the papers with new understanding. "The necessity of people to yell at other people, control when they eat, sleep, and...you know-" Al stifled a grin at her delicate phraseology of what would have been blatant and obscene where Sam was "-and degrade them constantly. All that breeds is paranoia, fear, and mindless drones."

"Maybe at first," he agreed, "but it doesn't end at week two, Verbena. That kid in there still has twelve more weeks of this to go and, the further on he gets, the more he'll learn not to let things frighten him. He'll learn to use the paranoia to his advantage. He'll learn to think, anticipate, and take the consequences if he chooses wrong. And he'll be part of a class with bonds stronger than anything in the civilian world."

She shook her head slightly. "I'm not so sure I agree with you, Al, but we're not going to settle this age-old argument today."

He grinned faintly, softening his words. "Have you ever done it?" he asked simply. When she had no response, his grin widened. "Trust me, hon, it's as foreign to you as the civilian world is to me."

"Your best friend's a civilian," she pointed out and the smile vanished from his face.

"Not today. Ziggy's pulling some data for me but, in the meantime, let's see how our visitor is doing." She nodded and he walked into the Waiting Room.


	3. Chapter 2

**OCS**

**Chapter 2**

October 2000  
Stallions Gate, NM

Andreas Foster was a short man, though still an inch or so taller than Al, very solidly built and obviously well-equipped to handle himself in any kind of altercation that might head his way. He had the look of someone who would have played soccer in high school: lean and trim, but agile enough to make up for any bulk he may have been lacking. Even so, his fawn brown eyes radiated confusion and maybe even a little panic as he snapped to attention upon Al's entrance. His hands clenched to fists at his sides, his thumbs rubbing against his forefingers tensely as he tried to gauge the correct response to the new development.

Coming from a world where there was a set way to talk, stand, act, and think for every possible circumstance (not to mention a world where one could still be punished even for giving the correct response), he was obviously about to go into spasms from the lack of structure. The training had already seeped into him and become more than a series of memorized actions. It had morphed into instinct.

Al crossed the room to stand in front of him and nodded approvingly. "Relax, sailor," he prompted, wincing inwardly as he reminded himself officers weren't really sailors. Andreas barely even loosened his hands. He dredged up some older terminology from the early years of his training. "Unlock," he clarified, deciding instantly that this candidate definitely did not need to know he was an admiral. Given what being around ensigns did to officer candidates, he'd probably wet himself. "There's no Marines around here, I promise," he added and finally got a cautious, wary smile out of Foster. "Have a seat, kid."

"Aye, sir," he responded automatically and sat, stiff-backed, hands laying on his knees, fingers together. Al stifled the urge to laugh. Contrary to popular belief, it was possible to sit at attention.

"Hey, kid, listen to me: **relax**. And don't call me 'sir'. My name's Al, okay?" Foster nodded tightly and Al could tell he desperately wanted to reply but didn't think he could do it without using that particular word. _Already as locked on as a bank safe..._

"Where am I, s-, uh..."

Al interjected before the slip-up could cause any more discomfort. "I'm afraid I can't tell you that, it's top secret, but we've had to...pull you out of training for a week."

"Am I going to roll?" he asked instantly, concern evident on his face. His military bearing had a ways to go, that much was apparent, even if rolling to the next class was the worst fate that could befall someone at OCS. Just because you understood the whole thing was a game didn't mean you'd want to stick around for more of it, and that's exactly what would happen if he rolled.

It took a second for the word to come back to him. "No, you're not going to roll. We'll let you graduate with the class you started with, understand?"

"Yes, sir," he replied automatically, not even realizing the word had been spoken. Al let it pass. If he let the kid come completely out of the training mentally as well as physically, it'd just be that much harder on him when he went back.

"What made you decide to go in the Navy, anyway?" Al asked, curiosity temporarily overriding mission. Exchange of motive was always a good icebreaker when meeting a fellow servicemember. "Your father a Navy man?"

"No, sir."

Al understood why people like himself had gone in: he would have had almost no opportunities in his situation. He was an orphan with no place to live and no money to speak of. When he left the orphanage at 18, he had a small duffel bag to his name and he wasn't sure how he was going to survive, much less how he would be able to get Trudy out of the hole she'd been locked away in. Then there was the Navy, handing him all these options to do great things on a silver platter. All he owed them was time and that was one thing the orphan had plenty of. "No history, huh? Then what?"

Andreas looked him in the eyes for the first time. "It was an opportunity to do something…more." He blinked and lowered his eyes. "Sir," he added belatedly.

Al nodded slowly in case more information was forthcoming, but none was. It was enough, though; Al understood exactly what the young man meant. "I'm sure you'll make a great officer. Now, I'm going to ask you a few questions, all right? What can you tell me about your bunkmates?"

The admiral could see him fighting the swiss-cheese effect hard, navigating around holes. It was an art Sam had perfected after years of leaping, but to each leapee, it was a new sensation. "I, uh, don't really know them too well, sir. We're not left alone to talk a whole lot."

Al frowned deeply and pulled the handlink up to look at it. The lights were flashing rapidly as Ziggy sifted through the database for bios on all of Foster's shipmates. And, slowly, results were beginning to pull up.

"Hey, what's that?" the young man asked suddenly, starting to loosen up enough to ask some questions of his own. "I've never seen anything like that before."

"Uh, well…" Al fumbled for a moment. "Think of it like a flashy palm pilot."

"What's that?" Andreas countered.

Al thought back to 1998. Surely they had palm pilots back in 1998, didn't they? Perhaps they were just too much in their infancy for Andreas to be familiar with them, or maybe it was just another hole. "Never mind," he stated smoothly. Scrolling data on the 'link's tiny screen caught his attention and he redirected his gaze downward. Ziggy had finally pinpointed one possibility in the probability matrix of Andreas' life. One of the potential mistakes in history lay in Phillip Hutchins, Foster's bunkmate. Hutchins had quit, it seemed, and his life had spiraled downward from there. "What can you tell me about Hutchins?" he pressed.

"Hutchins…" For a moment, Al thought he would come up empty, but then the light came on in his eyes. "He's kind of quiet, so it's hard to say. Keeps to himself a lot."

Al nodded and tucked the 'link away again. In that kind of environment, keeping to yourself was certain death. You **needed** the people around you - needed them to remind you why you were putting yourself through this. You needed them to catch the things you missed and vice versa. If you couldn't depend on the men and women around you at boot camp, how were you going to do it from the cockpit of a plane, or the helm of a ship?

Besides, chances were, the next day they would need you.

"Have you guys had any time to chat, or has it been all training so far?" Al had homework to do yet on the details of Officer Candidate School. This was not like other situations Sam had leaped into: if he messed up one nuance, one seemingly insignificant detail, they would end up being punished for it. By the time 4 or 5 weeks of training would elapse, the punishment would slow and the class would improve on military bearing and procedure and they would begin to accept the inevitable from time to time but, for right now, one member constantly causing them to face repercussions could affect how the entire class saw Foster when he was sent back. Close enough was not good enough here.

Andreas shifted uncomfortably. "Just training, mostly, sir. But after that first week was finally over and all the DIs went home for the weekend, we all kind of hung around the halls getting to know other classes, and he just stayed in the room and polished his shoes."

Al moved to sit next to him, hoping the casual position would serve to ease his nerves further. "Did he talk to those of you in his room?"

"No. But his shoes look great."

Al smiled, encouraged by the small joke. Andreas was starting to see him as a classmate instead of staff to be feared and intimidated by. "Maybe he can do your shoes and you can iron his uniforms or something. We used to take turns all the time doing different tasks at the Academy."

The stiffening in Andreas' shoulders would have been imperceptible to anyone else except perhaps Ziggy. Instantly, Al realized his mistake. "You were at the Academy, sir?"

The easy way out was to say he was still there but, although the admiral didn't look his age, there was no way he could pass for a young man in his 20's. "Oh, I've been out for a long time. Years, Andreas," Al lied smoothly, hoping the use of his first name would put him back at ease. How could he have slipped up so fast?

"Yes, sir." He was still guarded, but Al felt that the opportunity was there to work back to the previous atmosphere. He cursed himself internally; in trying to find a common bond with the young man, he had inadvertently pulled himself out of the role of confidant.

"While you're here, maybe you could take the opportunity to learn from my experiences," Al suggested. "OCS can be overwhelming, especially for someone with no prior military experience."

"Yes, sir," was all Andreas offered. He was no longer looking at Al, but had adopted his "thousand yard stare", an appropriately named and self-explanatory term.

"Okay, well, we'll talk more later, okay?" Al stood, still trying to act casual. "Is there anything I can get you while you're in here alone?"

Andreas hesitated. "I need to study, sir," he said finally.

Al smiled. "General Orders of the Sentry?" he asked, finally drawing a small smile of response from his companion. "Sure thing, kid. Dr. Beeks will be in a little later. I'll send some study material along with her so you don't get too behind the rest of your class." With a wink, he left the room, hopeful that Andreas would be comfortable enough to talk to him on his next visit.

July 1998  
Pensacola, FL

The afternoon passed too quickly and Sam soon found the group of people lining up for evening chow. Visions of the three drill instructors that had swooped down on him during lunch when he didn't have his feet at a 45 degree angle (and just what did that **mean**, anyhow?) brought a shudder to his spine. It had been a painful experience all around: every aspect of the meal was highly regimented, down to the two glasses that had to touch each other. The tray went a certain way, you held your glass a certain way, chewed a certain way, stood and sat a certain way.

They probably had a proper way to sleep. Authorized dreams only, of course...

Sam fought down the smile that rose to his lips: in just a quick day, he'd learned that something like that would be noticed and land them all in the grass for more physical punishment. The one advantage of the "thousand yard stare" was that it gave him the opportunity to think while he ate. The more he zoned out, in fact, the less nervous he became. Simms had confided in him during another break in the class that she sang to herself in her head while she ate. It was the most stressful part of the day for her, she said, and so after she sat down, she ran Twila Paris music through her mind. Sam didn't know who that was – the latest rock star of the year, he supposed.

Time, it seemed, was measured in blocks. At this point in the training, it was meal to meal. He looked down at said meal and sighed internally, grabbed his fork, took a bite, put the fork down, looked back up, and then started to chew. Luckily, he'd learned that lesson through the verbal abuse of a fellow classmate, not through his own indiscretions.

"Hi, Sam." The leaper thought he hadn't been so glad to hear his friend's voice in a long time. "I know you can't talk or look at me, just stay locked on, okay?" Sam wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but he was pretty sure he could figure it out. He'd heard a reference to "locking" and "unlocking" earlier among the class and decided it had to do with being at attention or not.

"We may have figured something out for you," he started, then stopped as Holguin banged the table and made some announcement about how much longer they had to eat. "Okay," he resumed, "your bunkmate is a guy named Phillip Hutchins and Ziggy thinks this is the guy you're here for." He hit a button that lit up the handlink and started pacing as he talked, not realizing he was wandering in and out of the table as he did so. "Phillip, or Hutchins as you'll probably call him, grew up in a small town in Ohio and left home as soon as he graduated high school. His father owns a small auto shop and wanted him to go into the family business like his older brother did. He had no interest in that, it seems, and so he started to put himself through college, but then he ran out of money." He paused, suddenly realizing his path and stopped at Sam's shoulder. "Sorry." He tucked the cigar in his mouth and eyed the mess hall. "Anyhow, he went to the Navy to get help with his education and so now he owes time in service. He's here to be a Supply Officer, but in two weeks, he DORs."

Sam hazarded a barely audible sigh.

"Okay, okay, sorry again. It's drop on request." He hesitated, waiting for another reaction from his partner, then added, just in case, "He quits, Sam. But because he still owes time, he has to join the enlisted ranks and they stick him as a deck seaman on a large amphibious ship. You see, if you come in like Andreas did, off the street (it's called), and the Navy didn't pay any of your education or training except here at OCS, then you just go on with your life. No harm, no foul. But Phillip had part of his education paid for by the Navy, so now if he doesn't complete this training, he'll still have an enlistment to carry out. He's got more on the line than most people here. Even the enlisted guys who come here and DOR just go back to the life they knew before." He stopped to make sure he had the light of understanding in Sam's eyes. It was a toss-up, but Al chose to assume that Sam was following it all. "Anyway, so he DORs and becomes a seaman, which is really the bottom line here. Then," he continued, starting to pace again without noticing, "he gets a DUI – surely you know that acronym - in a year and is eventually discharged from the Navy and disappears."

Holguin gave the signal for everyone to stand and, as Sam trailed out, he cast Al a quick look.

"Sam, to this day nobody knows where he is."

The class formed up and made it out of the chow hall without incident, marching back to their rooms as quickly as they could. Al trailed along off to the left of the formation, calling out the occasional tip to Sam to keep in formation correctly. While they transited, Al eyed the perfectly aligned columns of officer candidates and picked out Hutchins easily. As they entered the building, Al gestured to him, calling, "Sam! This is Hutchins. You're his bunkmate – if you follow him, we'll know which room is yours."

Sam nodded and shifted course through the tired, sweaty crowd of the 25 people who made up what had been called "Class 14-98". Another peculiar thing Sam had noticed was that numbers were all different here. Instead of being called "Class fourteen – ninety-eight", it was "Class one four – nine eight." He'd have to remember to ask Al about that later.

The room was bare and held only four beds, four lockers, four tables, and four chairs; all were, of course, identical. The beds were made neatly, almost to perfection in their unity (something else Sam was undoubtedly going to have to ask for help with) and sat in the four corners, all with scratchy-looking dark gray wool blankets. The lockers were the same pale tan as the walls, each locked with a combination lock. The tables were arranged in a block in the center of the room, the chairs tucked neatly beneath them. Al was actually the only bit of color in the room, standing out in his red suit and checkered shirt, complete with a shimmering orange tie, clashing with the décor in every possible respect. One would never have thought, just from looking at him, that he would be more comfortable in the cotton khakis than Sam himself.

Al smiled slightly, a gesture more to encourage Sam than a product of reminiscing. Hutchins made a bee-line for the far left corner and Al gestured with his cigar. "It's this kid, Sam. Geez, he looks young!" He referred to his handlink for a moment. "He's only 22. Man!"

Hutchins did indeed look young, probably nearly 4 years junior than he was, to Sam's eyes. He had a lean figure, accentuated by the damp uniform that clung to his frame. When he turned to face Sam, his eyes were a bright blue and, though his hair was almost non-existent (a condition shared by everyone except the women, whose were about two inches long), it was obvious from his sandy-blonde eyebrows and his fair complexion that it would be equally blonde when it grew back out.

Sam determined his bunk was the closer one on the left when two more candidates filed in and took the ones on the right. He was about to sit down when a dark-skinned man protested, "Hey, man, don't do that yet! We'll have to remake it!"

"Oh...right." He started to move towards one of the chairs, but this time it was Al who saved him from further embarrassment.

"Uh, Sam?" When the scientist aborted the action, he sighed and took a couple steps towards his friend. "I know this all seems completely foreign to you, but this is military training. You can't take anything for granted. As strange as this seems, you can't use the chairs."

"What?" Sam asked before he could stop himself.

Hutchins glanced curiously at him, but didn't comment and Sam couldn't think of any excuse for speaking to thin air.

Al moved in front of him. "You haven't been given permission to use the chairs in your room yet." This time, the leaper didn't respond verbally, but his eyes showed exasperation. "You can't put your hands in your pockets, trash in the trash can, and you can't sit in the chairs."

Before Sam could find a delicate way to show the observer how much he detested his beloved institution, they heard someone yelling from the hallway.

"Morris did it again, everyone! Burles will be up soon to tuck us all in, and we've got to get this cleaned up before he does."

Sam's three bunkmates groaned audibly and trailed out of the room. Sam followed along behind them and into another room four doors down. Al was right behind the convoy and started to laugh when they entered the room.

"Oh, Sam! He got hurricaned."

Sam hadn't heard the term before, but he immediately realized where it came from. The room, a sharp contrast to the one he had just left, had items scattered all over the floor: clothing, toiletries, paper. That wasn't the worst of it, though. An empty can of shaving cream sat on the bed, its contents spread all over the walls and tables. On the locker itself, the words "Situational Awareness" and "Security" were written in the cream, barely distinguishable as the cream had started to slide down the smooth surface. Morris groaned and sat down on the now ruined bed and then yelped slightly, tossing the covers back. Sam wrinkled his nose when he saw the tube of toothpaste, emptied between the sheets.

"They're evil," Sam commented casually, "but you've gotta give them points for creativity." Al laughed, but he was the only one, probably because he was the only one who would have no part in the cleanup.

Holguin once again took the lead. "Let's get this done. Morris, can you please remember to lock your lock next time?"

Sam maneuvered himself beside Hutchins, grabbed a handful of paper towels from the stack Simms had dropped on the tables, and started wiping down the walls. "Lots of fun, huh?" he asked, trying to find something casual to open with.

Hutchins glanced briefly at him, then resumed his work, shrugging non-committally.

Sam cast a look at Al, who mirrored the shrug. "Foster told us he was quiet."

"So, ah, where are you from?" Sam asked, trying to find anything that would spark a conversation, give him an in to what the young man was thinking.

"Boston." He transferred the clump of paper towels to his opposite hand, turning slightly away from Sam in the process. Sam doubted it was unintentional.

The leaper waited for more, but none was forthcoming.

"That's where he went to college, Sam," Al offered. "He must really have left his family on bad terms if he won't talk about them."

"No kidding," Sam said with forced cheerfulness. "I know it well. Spent a lot of time there. I think I love Boston in the fall most of all."

"Mmm." Without a word, Hutchins got up to toss his paper towel and started picking up items from a shaving kit on the other side of the room.

Sam groaned in exasperation. "How am I going to find out how to help him if he literally won't even say two words to me?" he demanded of his observer in low tones to avoid attracting anyone's attention.

"Sam, you just met him. These guys haven't been hanging around for the past two weeks having social hour every afternoon, they've been in a manufactured stressful environment and most of the time they can't even talk to each other. Give it a little time, huh?"

Before he could answer, they heard the raw voice of the drill instructor calling them out into the hallway overlapped by a slightly panicked voice calling, "Attention on deck, standby!" "Good evening, sir," 6 or 7 voices echoed.

"Class 14-98!" he growled, voice resonating down the hallway. Despite the growing dread of more physical abuse, Sam couldn't help but think that he would do a few extra pushups just for the fun of hearing the man yell, "Fee fie fo fum..."

Sam trailed his classmates out into the hall, accepting without questioning the absurdity of traveling only on the left side of the hallway and soon found himself with is back to the wall, Simms on one side of him and Hutchins on the other.

"Burles is the name of your DI, Sam, your drill instructor," Al instructed patiently, standing in front of him. "Whatever you do, don't look at him. Just look straight ahead."

Burles prowled down the hallway, which is the only word Sam could think of to describe it. Though Sam had gotten an unwanted up-close-and-personal look at the man shortly after the leap-in, he had been a little too startled and disoriented to take in his entire appearance. Now, as he passed in front of Sam's view, all he could think was that the man looked like a tree. This was due only in part to the camouflage uniform he wore but mostly to his stature and build, which was enormous. The leaper's mind flickered back to the smatterings of conversation he'd heard in the classroom earlier that day. Two other students had been talking about stories they'd heard about Burles, one of which detailed him hiding in a tree and jumping out in the path of some unsuspecting class. He'd dismissed it as a fairy tale but, when the Marine turned and looked at his face, his piercing (and shocking) blue eyes staring straight through Sam, he had no trouble believing the tale. Even Al, a two-star admiral, sidestepped the giant when he strolled by.

"Sam," he continued in a hushed tone, "this guy isn't the enemy, this class just doesn't know it, yet."

Sam's expression clearly said he didn't believe him.

"Honestly," Al insisted. "I called up a buddy of mine who was an OCS grad. He told me all about it and even said that, by the end of the 13 weeks, most everyone in the class comes to like their DI. He said his class used to refer to his DI as 'Daddy Knoll'." Burles passed by leaper and hologram again and Al cleared his throat. "Never...of course...to his face.," he added.

The Drill Instructor took up position at the end of the hall, peering down the rows. Now that Sam's own heart had stopped thudding, he heard the tense breathing from Hawkins at his elbow. He wanted to ask Al to make sure he was okay, but he didn't dare speak and Al wasn't paying attention to either him or the focus of the leap.

"Mail call," Burles pronounced sternly and the Class Leader, Holguin, took position behind him, taking the stack and handing out the letters to him one at a time.

"Brown!" Burles barked and one of the officer candidates fell out of line and stood in front of Burles. Sam watched out of the corner of his eye in case Foster's family turned out to be prolific writers. Brown stood at attention in front of the man and held out both arms, slapping the letter between his hands. Then he did a smart about-face and marched back to his position. Sam choked back a laugh at the action.

Mail call seemed to be a less tense time with Burles, but there was still a moment when physical abuse came into play. Officer Candidate Quidem (or "Weed" as the drill instructor had dubbed him) had the misfortune to receive a post card and, in what almost seemed a sense of fun, was directed to read it aloud. At the first term of endearment from his mother, another class member snorted out a chuckle and the whole class dropped and started pushing, even without being ordered to.

Al observed all this with vague amusement as he watched the faces of the future of the Navy. Some of them, he saw, were starting to catch on to what was fun and what was serious, and had resigned themselves to the inevitable, that they were going to get "mashed", as it was called on a regular basis whether they did everything right or not, and as long as they accepted that as a reality, it was easier. Others seemed to be having more difficulty adjusting. It was only the second week, though – most of them would adapt before too much longer and those who didn't would probably end up rejoining the civilian community.

The observer's focus fell to Phillip Hutchins, huffing and puffing beside Sam. Physically, the young man looked horrible – flushed and breathing heavily, but Al doubted it was from some physical ailment except for perhaps exhaustion. It was obvious he wasn't in prime shape, but was motivated and healthy enough to survive this. More than that, though, he looked tense and anxious. Nobody wanted to stand out in a place like this, for certain, but he seemed almost paranoid about blending, about doing everything he could to pass under the radar.

The most notable trait was the lack of the very thing Sam had so quickly picked up on in Simms: he wasn't stubborn enough, wasn't determined enough to succeed. And he didn't realize that it was all just a game. All the people in the past two weeks who yelled at him, who had forced him to yell back, had their own lives. They went home, had families, hung out with friends, and all of this was just an act. As much as you could tell yourselves that, however, it was still somewhat of a traumatizing experience in the beginning, especially if you weren't used to having 5 people yelling in your face at once. Al was beginning to get the impression that, instead of adapting, Phillip had closed off, which was exactly the wrong way to survive an environment like this.

"Hey, Sam, I'm gonna go check up on a few things, okay? I'll be back later to give you some pointers and information." Sam glanced up to make brief eye contact, and then concentrated on his exercises. "Just hang in there, buddy, things should calm down some after this."

He opened the Door and was gone.

October 2000  
Stallions Gate, NM

Verbena was waiting for him outside of the Imaging Chamber, hands on her hips. Al saw her and veered right, but she blocked him. "Oh, no you don't, mister, what did you tell Andreas?"

He looked at her glowering eyes, a little confused. "I didn't tell him anything about Quantum Leap," he protested, a little angry at the implication that he would wander into that territory without her presence.

"That's not what I'm talking about," she countered, leading him by the elbow towards the Waiting Room. "After you left, I went in to see him and he was asking all kinds of questions about your rank, time in service, everything. I think you spooked him all over again."

Al sighed. "I know, I didn't mean to. He was nervous and tense where he came from and being transported into his future, even if only a couple years, is enough to make someone nervous and tense on its own." He shrugged helplessly, rubbing his face. "I was just trying to give him someone who could relate to him and it slipped out. Sorry."

She nodded, relenting. "Well, you didn't do it on purpose. It just makes my job a little harder, that's all."

"Is the kid okay?"

She shook her head. "He hasn't eaten or slept since he got here."

He sighed again, louder this time. "Okay, well, I guess I could talk to him again..."

"Let's give him a few more hours." She pondered the admiral for a few moments, taking in the bags under his eyes with expert observation. "We can probably use it to our advantage after he settles down a little."

"He's got to sleep sometime," Al acknowledged with a wry smile.

"Hmm, so do you."

The smile vanished, but, before he could interject, she continued on. "This isn't exactly a life or death leap for Sam this time, okay Al? He's only been there a day and you already look like you've been up for three."

He seemed about to protest but then nodded. "I know. You're right. Sam's day is pretty much over, anyhow, and he'll have to be up at 0500 for physical training."

She pushed him gently on the arm in the direction of the elevator. "See you later, admiral. Get some sleep."

"Sleep?" he inquired incredulously as he let her steer him. "Why, is Tina sick?" The elevator doors closed on the glint in his eyes.


	4. Chapter 3

**OCS**

**Chapter 3**

July 1998  
Pensacola, FL

_Whoever picked this song, _Sam thought to himself as he dragged himself up off the bed – rack – and pulled on his shoes, _knew what they were doing. It's a horrible song to wake up to._

Reveille crashed through the halls at an obscene volume and Sam copied the acts of his bunkmates in preparing for the morning workout. They had talked some the night before, but Sam's every attempt to engage Phillip in conversation was thwarted by some other item that required his attention. He had learned not to sleep in his rack because then he'd have to get up early to make it, but slept in Navy sweats with his physical training gear on underneath it. He'd also learned how lucky they actually were to have reveille sounded as for the first week, the senior class had woken them by rolling trash cans down the hallway. Or p-way.

Sam grimaced to himself, grudgingly admitting that the "brainwashing" was having an effect. Apparently, the Navy wasn't just anal retentive, they were delusional as well: they weren't in a building, they were on a ship. It wasn't a floor, he was informed, it was a deck. Not walls, bulkheads; the ceiling was an overhead and so on. Although the lingo only took a moment to pick up on, it wasn't so much difficult as it was annoying.

He pulled on a pair of running shoes and trailed along behind his classmates, managing to stay near Phillip. It was 5 AM, but when they walked out into the Pensacola morning, the humidity hit Sam like a ton of bricks and the moisture hung, a tangible thing, on his skin. Breathing was immediately protracted until his body adjusted to the atmosphere. The sun was still just a whisper on the horizon and it was already bad.

They gathered in a formation on the street, the last in a line of classes, all at different stages in training. Sam had met a few of them the night before as they came by to give pointers and advice on surviving the first military training test, to be given in two weeks. They stretched and, aside from the gentle scuffing of tennis shoes on asphalt, there was no noise, but it wasn't the tense silence of standing at attention in a hallway - no, darn it - a passageway. Instead, there was an air of anticipation in the group. Sam glanced sideways at Phillip and saw dread on his face.

The drill instructors came out and the class began a short warm-up lap around a parade field. Sam found he actually enjoyed this activity as opposed to the constant mashing they underwent during the day. Following the warm-up, they stretched out, did some push-ups and sit-ups, and then started a formation run. The run, Sam learned, was a five mile run at about an 8 mph pace. Always one to enjoy a run, Sam had no trouble keeping up and shouting the cadence that the drill instructors led as they ran down the road.

By the time they hit mile two, Phillip was starting to breathe heavily, not having found his pace. It was difficult, Sam had to admit, as running in a large formation like this was akin to being a leg on a centipede: the further back in line you were, the more uneven the pace, often resulting in a run walk kind of scenario as the group undulated. At the third mile, Phillip dropped out, to the ridicule of the three marine bulldogs at the back. Phillip got in the van that followed the formation, prepared to ride the rest of the way back.

Another half mile passed and Al popped in beside Sam, looking as if he was riding a moving sidewalk as Ziggy kept him centered on the leaper. "'Morning, Sam," he said cheerfully. Sam glanced over at him, but didn't interrupt his recitation about some woman with no arms and no legs. Al gazed at the leaper through a haze of cigar smoke. A long nap, shower, and a change of clothes left Al looking more able to tackle the world. The bags were gone, replaced by a wry smile. His forest green suit with matching fedora stood out in the sea of people, all dressed in navy blue running shorts and white t-shirts with the Navy emblem on them in reflective color. "Yuck, I hate running. That's one thing I always hated." Sam nodded, barely perceptible with the bobbing of his body as he ran. "Where's Phillip?" he asked.

"The van," Sam hissed breathlessly, grateful he was in one of the inner columns and therefore not directly observed by any drill instructors.

Al glanced back at the van and then pulled up the handlink. "Sam, nothing's changed. Don't you think you should be there with him?"

"What?"

"Yeah, this could be the perfect opportunity to talk." The look Sam shot him was slightly disbelieving. "Sam," Al stated, exasperated, "this isn't a race. And it won't get Foster in any trouble, it just means you'll catch a little ridicule, maybe do some extra push-ups. It's worth it to get the chance to talk to Phillip. Drop out of the formation."

Sam admitted to himself it was a valid point and started to drop back in the group, the formation bowing out to make room for him as he drifted towards the rear. As soon as he cleared the crowd, two drill instructors were in his face, taunting him about quitting, asking why he couldn't finish. He managed to shout out a few "No, sirs!" and finally jogged back to the van, which slowed and then stopped to allow him to get in.

Phillip wasn't the only one in the van: 3 other personnel had also dropped out of the run and were talking quietly amongst themselves. It was being driven by a woman in the senior class who shot him a sympathetic look before easing off the brakes and drifting behind the flowing wave of the future of the military.

Sam maneuvered himself beside Phillip, who was staring out the window at Pensacola Naval Air Station as it passed by. "So, Phil – uh – Hutchins," he fumbled, "dropped out of the run?"

Hutchins sighed, deeply, and spoke without turning towards the leaper. "Yeah. Again."

Two word response! Things were looking up, Sam thought to himself, he'd have him using four word sentences in no time. "You not a good runner?"

The young man turned and, for the first time, looked Sam right in the eyes and smiled dimly. "No, not really. I can't run well to begin with. I feel like I'm gasping for oxygen."

Sam, who loved running, loved the feel of the wind through his hair, the sensation of feeling free, felt as if he could almost fly when he ran, couldn't understand exactly what he meant. "Oh, well, it's not that hard, actually, after you find your pace."

"You dropped out," Hutchins pointed out somberly.

"Leg cramp," Al offered, suddenly at his side.

"Leg cramp," Sam echoed without even hesitating. They were almost like an old married couple, the way he and Al were in synch. He just refrained from wrinkling his nose at that involuntary thought and almost missed Phillip's reply.

"I may as well have a permanent leg cramp," he muttered. At Sam's questioning gaze, he clarified, "I think I have shin splints."

"Oh. Well, that's pretty common. Can't you just go to medical and get some medication for it, maybe some Motrin?" he asked and was suddenly startled to see four sets of eyes staring at him in amazement, five if you included the admiral. He glanced at his observer. _What?_ his eyes demanded.

"Sam," Al admonished, "you can't do that."

"I can't do that," Hutchins echoed, turning back to the window. Sam felt the tenuous connection he'd established rapidly slipping through his fingers.

"Why not?" Sam asked both men.

"I don't want to roll!" Hutchins cried, a little panicky. "This hell hole is bad enough without having to stay here longer than 13 weeks."

"Sam," Al said again, this time his tone patient, "if he goes to medical, they could put him med down, and then he won't be able to continue with physical training. If he's down for more than three days, they roll him, which means he gets pushed back to the next class. He doesn't get to graduate with this group and he's here for at least 15 weeks. Usually the classes are a couple weeks apart," he added.

"I see your point," he conceded, still speaking to both his companions.

"Just listen a moment," Al continued, punctuating his sentences with small jabs of his cigar. "I know why Hutchins is having trouble. I know, I think, why he quits. OCS is a game. In the beginning, there are no right answers but, as you continue on, you have to figure things out as a class. Try to anticipate what your class team is going to expect of you and respond to it before it happens. If you're wrong, you get punished. You play the game." He shrugged and tucked his hands into his pockets, as if to illustrate. "You don't put your hands in your pockets, don't use the trash cans, do all those things that seem so stupid. Fold your shirts into perfect squares, one foot by one foot. It's stupid, it's absurd! Nobody does that in the real Navy. Never once will you go into a sailor's locker on ship and find his socks all folded into little blocks two inches by four and starched within an inch of their lives – nobody would ever be able to wear them!"

Sam shook his head, free to make exasperated expressions at his partner with Hutchins still staring out the window. He didn't understand the point of any of it. It reminded him vaguely of pledging a fraternity, something he'd steered very clear of in college, due in no small part to his age at the time. It was all a pointless series of activities designed only to humiliate the pledges for the gratification of those in the seat of power.

Al tucked his cigar between his teeth and the handlink in his pocket and tried again. "Okay, look, there is a point. When you're in an aircraft and you don't follow one thing on the checklist before you take off and that thing suddenly goes out on you, you're dead. When you're on a ship and there's incoming fire and you don't follow the exact procedures to set off chaff, you're dead. And, worse, probably a lot of other people. It's all about-" he sighed, as if reluctant to continue "-attention to detail," he finished with a wry smile. "It's all symbolic. If you can learn to do those dumb things to the level of detail and regiment that the military subjects you to here, you can learn to do it in the fleet.

"Okay, the point," he continued, seeing the exasperation turn to annoyance. "Hawkins doesn't get it. He doesn't see it as a game. If you get mashed, you don't fail, you don't not get a commission, you just go through a little extra pain. What is that, in the grand scheme? It's not the end of the world. I think the kid is taking each failure personally. He doesn't finish a run, he's not cut out for this, in his eyes. He failed at trying to put himself through college and, since he turned his back on his family to do it, he's a failure there, too. You have to get him through this, Sam, help him see that he can finish something he started."

_You finished?_ Sam mouthed, a hint of amusement in his eyes.

"Uh…yeah, I'm done." Al offered a self-satisfied smile and took a long drag on the cigar.

"Look, Hutchins," Sam said, hoping he hadn't lost his classmate in the long silence. "I know you don't want to roll. How bad does it hurt?"

"Bad enough." The words were flat, defeated.

"Well, listen, if you can push through it, you won't have to roll. It won't cause any permanent damage, and if you can just get going into a rhythm, the endorphins in your body will block out some of the pain, at least."

"It's…not just the run," Hutchins said slowly and turned back to face Sam. The leaper had the impression he was about to open up for the first time. "It's what happens after the run."

"Oh." Sam thought over what Al had just said and was on the verge of repeating it when he realized he was the one leaping, not Al, and there had to be a reason he was the one who was here. Al was career military, not some kid fresh out of college trying to make his way through boot camp. If he was going to get through to Phillip, he was going to have to do it as Dr. Sam Beckett, not parroting the philosophies of Admiral Calavicci. "Listen, Phillip," he said slowly, deliberately using his first name, "you know what I think?"

"What?" he asked in a tone that indicated he clearly wasn't interested in knowing.

"I think all this is a bunch of nonsense." Hutchins looked at him quizzically, but Sam pushed on. "I mean, all this stuff that's supposed to teach us discipline and…attention to detail is just nonsense. We're a bunch of adults and we get treated like children here. They want us to be able to follow instruction down to the last letter, they should ensure we know how to, not treat us like misbehaving infants."

"Sam…"

"Yeah," Hutchins agreed, showing the first spark of enthusiasm thus far.

"It's not that simple," Al muttered, but didn't interrupt. It was the first time they'd gotten any kind of reaction and they had to run with it while it was there.

"But we're here," Sam resumed, noting out of the corner of his eye that they were almost back to the parade field. "We all want our commissions and this is the only way to get them. So don't let it get to you, okay? It's all stupid, pointless exercises. You just have to keep telling yourself nothing can happen to you. They can't hit you, can't do anything other than yell at you and make you suffer a little pain through push-ups."

"Yeah," Hutchins said again but, this time, it was quiet and reserved. "I guess."

"Ah, you lost him, Sam. What did you go and do that for?" The leaper glared. "Look, you tell the kid it's all for nothing and you're not going to get him any more motivated."

"It's not for nothing," Sam protested, momentarily forgetting his audience, "but teaching this way is not going to get the best out of people like him."

"What?" his companion asked.

"You," Sam corrected belatedly. "I just think they could do this better so good people like you who have the potential to be good officers stay with the program."

"I'll stay with it," he said quietly. "I have no place else to go."

Before Sam could draw from that vein, the van lurched to a stop and three monsters in cammies converged on the vehicle. "Okay, guys," the driver said, "everyone out."

Sam's tennis shoes hadn't even touched the grass when the yelling began, followed by an exhaustive set of sprints framed by various other elements of torture. Sam was so engrossed in following direction and retaining any energy he could for the next hurdle that he didn't notice the rest of the class doing cool-down stretches, didn't notice Phillip get moved into a different group, and failed to register Al's departure.

October 2000  
Stallions Gate, NM

Al exited the Imaging Chamber, shaking his head slightly. Phillip seemed disheartened, frustrated, and hurt, but not ready to quit. As he himself had said, he had nowhere else to go, so why would he give up the opportunity to complete his training? Either way, he was already owned by the military. It only made sense to put up with the extra abuse and go through his career as an officer rather than an undesignated enlisted man.

He stopped his slow pace into the middle of the Control Room, not even glancing at Gooshie manning the controls as he ran his own scenarios in his head. "Ziggy?" he called, stopping abruptly at dead center.

"Ye-es, Admiral?" The words oozed from her speakers and Al smiled to himself, slightly. Moments like this, he often thought that if Ziggy had a physical embodiment, it would be of a curvaceous woman in a body-hugging suit. He was glad Tina wasn't present to see the slight tug of his lips as he held back the chuckle; she may act like a ditz, but darned if she didn't always know what was going on in his head.

Which, mind you, wasn't always a bad thing...

"Do you have any more projections on what could cause Phillip to change his mind?" he asked, pulling his focus back to the present.

"Possibly, Admiral. I would surmise that perhaps his injured shins would be a contributing factors towards his eventual surrender."

"Surrender," Al repeated slowly. "That's an interesting choice of words."

"If you prefer," she purred and Al mentally added a seductive smile to the vision in his mind, "I could say he gave up, submitted, relinquished-"

"No, no, Zig, surrender is fine." He crossed into the hallway, continuing the conversation without any real hope of it providing resolution. "If his shins are a factor, what other possible factors do we have?"

"His rift with his parents, the lack of any military background and thus an uncertainty of what to expect, his distance from his classmates, the-"

"Okay, okay," Al laughed. "I'm almost sorry I asked."

"Well," she sniffed, but mercifully fell silent. It didn't take much to get her into a snit; the problem was usually getting her back out of it when they needed information again.

Al slowed as he reached his destination and cast a quick glance about for Verbena. Seeing no sign of her presence, he decided to brave the Waiting Room without her express approval first. As the door opened he heard Andreas reciting, ironically, the second article in the Code of Conduct.

Andreas stood dead center of the room, at perfect attention. His shoulders were ramrod straight and Al could see the muscles tight under the ever revealing Fermi suit. That was the first rule of the military, though: if it feels uncomfortable, you're probably doing it right.

The young man's voice rang out slowly as he worked to commit the lines to memory, loud, but not yelling. "I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist. The third article in the Code of-"

"Hey, kid," Al interrupted, strolling in casually. "Sounds like you're really getting those down."

Foster jumped to his feet and snapped to attention, his hands clenched tightly at his sides, thumbs rubbing back and forth to find the trouser seams that didn't exist on the Fermi suit. He hesitated, then settled on, "Good afternoon, sir."

"Not bad," Al complimented, glancing at his wristwatch. "It's 1400. You must have a good sense of timing."

"Yes, sir."

"Andreas, stand easy, unlock, okay?" The observer sighed deeply as the young man relaxed marginally. He was going to have to force this. "Com'ere. Sit down." Al crossed the room, his shoes echoing in the stillness, and sat on the mirrored bench that Verbena had moved to the corner. She was constantly arranging and rearranging the room, adding and removing furniture, in a vain attempt to make it more homey. Andreas followed stiffly and sat down, first at attention, and then grudgingly relaxing and rolling his shoulders in obvious bliss. "Sore?" Al asked, grinning.

"Yes, sir," he returned, predictably.

"Y'know," Al continued, resting his right ankle on his left knee and fingering an unlit cigar in his right hand, deliberately assuming as relaxed a posture as possible, "once I was in formation in this parking lot in San Diego and it was early, maybe 0500, and we'd all been up really late doing drills. We weren't flying that day, so crew rest didn't apply – that's just something special for us pilots to make sure we're rested enough to fly – and this one guy in the front rank goes down hard. And, I mean, he went down at attention - bam! Cracked his chin on the pavement."

"Really?"

The kid was so engrossed in the story that he'd forgotten to say "sir". Al smiled knowingly and continued. "Yeah. He was okay, just split his chin open, but he was tired and hadn't eaten and was nauseous and was probably fighting some bug. Anyway, you have to be careful. Keep your posture, but try to relax your muscles, otherwise after something like a two hour change of command ceremony you'll be in pain in every muscle in your body."

"I'll remember that. Sir." Andreas smiled sheepishly and looked away.

"The real Navy isn't like that, y'know?" he continued, trying to undo some of the damage he had done earlier. "Just because you're an ensign and some other guy is a lieutenant junior grade doesn't mean you pop to attention and call him 'sir' every other word."

Foster made a move to comment, but Al cut him off with a wave of his hand.

"I know, that's what you have to put up with now. And I know it's easier said than done and it goes against what you've been trained to do so far, but you don't have to snap for attention for me. Maybe…" He grinned slightly. "Maybe if I met you on a base somewhere you would have to, but not here. Here, I just want you to be able to talk to me."

Foster hesitated again then asked the question that had been burning a hole in his brain ever since he worried he had unintentionally been disrespectful to a senior officer. "What rank are you, sir?"

Al looked him over, trying to decide what would be more harmful in the long run. After the stillness made Foster shift uncomfortably, he pasted an easy grin on his face and said, "Officer Candidate Foster, this is a top secret installation and you already know half of what we do here. Can't I keep **anything** classified?"

For a moment, the admiral thought it wouldn't work, then the hopeful future of the military returned with a reluctant smile and finally relaxed his posture. "I'll do what I can to help you out, sir," he responded.


	5. Chapter 4

**OCS**

**Chapter 4**

October 2000  
Stallions Gate, NM

Admiral Calavicci didn't often call a meeting of the Senior Staff. It wasn't that they had nothing to contribute to the individual leaps, but rather that there was rarely time for them all to sit together and brainstorm. For whatever reason, Al felt an instant bond with Andreas Foster. Maybe it was because seeing a young man just beginning his training caused him to wax nostalgic for his Academy days. As tiresome an environment as it could be at times, it had still embedded itself in his mind as one of the few single experiences that changed the entire course of his life.

He knew it sounded corny, but he thought of the Navy as his family. Other shipmates would scoff at this idea, but for him it was a very real thing, a core network of support to replace the biological one lost to him years ago. At a time when he had no place else to turn, the military had given him a place to live and money in his pocket.

Al sat at the head of the table and watched the staff trickle slowly in. _Sam's staff, _he thought to himself. He had never, in the five years since Sam's disappearance, really been able to think of them entirely as his. It didn't stop him, however, in feeling proud when he observed them in action.

He was the first one there and so took the opportunity to observe them all as they came through the door. Dr. Verbena Beeks was the second one in the room and he had a sneaking suspicion that she had made a special effort to be early for the very same reason.

The rest came in a small clump, chatting easily in some conversation started in the elevator: Gooshie, Tina, and Donna each took up their traditional seats in the room and, after an additional few seconds, the chatter died away and they brought their attention to bear on Al. Tina had had the late watch the night before and it showed in the circles under her eyes, but those same eyes still gleamed with excitement and her body language was as perky as the feathery voice. Al had been pretty much expecting that as Gooshie had slid a new proposal for some upgrades across his desk the week before and they were now in the process of implementing them. When they had first started dating, Al often worried that she was more turned on by the equipment in PQL than by the admiral himself, an anxiety that was put to rest very early on in their relationship.

Gooshie followed behind, talking animatedly with her. Al knew once the meeting started, he would be silent, as was his custom. When it came to circuits and programs, he was like a fish in water, but the intricacies of completing a leap were lost on the genius. There were times, however, when the man's inputs were invaluable and Al never wanted to shut him out of any gathering.

The observer turned his attention to Donna, as did the staff psychologist. She had the same dark circles under her eyes as Tina, but otherwise looked none the worse for the wear. It was apparently a good day. Most of the time, the leaps where Sam wasn't in some life-threatening peril led to a short string of good days when they would observe Sam Beckett's wife laughing, joking, and working with a vivacity that it was sometimes easy to forget she possessed.

"Okay, folks," Al started, folding his hands on the table in front of him, "let's get started so you can all get back to work, okay?" Verbena chuckled softly to his right. "It's a pretty routine leap except for one thing: Phillip Hutchins, the reason Sam's there, won't listen to anything he has to say. We can barely get two words out of the kid, but he's going to mess up his life." He looked up at the ceiling in spite of the fact that he knew it made no difference where he looked when he addressed Sam's creation. "Ziggy, when exactly does Phillip quit?"

"Phillip Hutchins initiates a Drop-On-Request and leaves Officer Candidate School on Friday of the fourth week of training," she supplied sweetly.

"Right," Al confirmed and pulled out the schedule the hybrid computer had supplied him with earlier. "Fourth week MTT – Military Training Test. According to my buddy, probably the single most stressful day at OCS."

"What's so bad about it?" Donna asked, leaning forward and resting her clasped hands on the shiny conference tabletop.

Surprisingly, it was Verbena who piped up, smiling sweetly at the admiral. "Oh, you know, a whole lot of yelling, articles of clothing folded in little teeny squares..."

"Thank you, Beeks," Al retorted to the tune of slight titters from around the table. "It's a graded evolution and the one most people tend to fail. If you fail two evolutions, they hold you back to the next class, and nobody wants that."

"So, like, he fails the inspection?" Tina inquired, snapping her gum noisily, a habit everyone in the group had learned to tolerate with varying degrees of success. "And then he quits?"

Al raised his eyebrows and took in the staff in a sweeping glance. "Actually...he passes."

"He what?" Even Verbena was taken off guard by the revelation. "Then how could that inspection have any bearing on him quitting?"

"That's why we have you, isn't it?" the admiral inquired.

"Maybe it has nothing to do with that at all," Donna countered quietly. She wrapped her arms around herself despite the warmth in the room. Everyone knew she was thinking: she tended to disappear a little inside herself when turning a new theory through her mind. "Then again, maybe he just decided enough was enough and he didn't want to keep going through all the stress."

"Maybe," Verbena concurred, a thoughtful glint in her own eyes, "but I think the thing that's important here is not what event makes him decide he's done, but why the stress leads him to give up on himself."

"I suppose," Donna agreed, "but the actual event is pretty important. Especially if the guy isn't talking to Sam. If he can't get to the heart of the problem, he's going to have to find some way to stop the catalyst."

"And that could be something that happens pretty fast, too," Verbena continued. Al sat back as did Tina and Gooshie, as if the three of them were waiting to see which woman would come out on top of the debate. Inwardly, Al grinned. This was why he'd gotten them in the same room: he himself was a localize and fix kind of guy: mechanical. If you look at a faulty part on an aircraft, you locate the problem and find the right part to fix it; people weren't always so simple.

Verbena continued after a thoughtful pause. "If you look at his history, he's never really had anyone have faith in him and, Al, you said he was sort of trying to distance himself from the group..."

"Right," Al agreed slowly, but left it at that so as not to interrupt her train of thought.

"So what we need to do is bring him into the team, whether he wants to be brought in or not."

"How do we do that?"

Verbena smiled slightly. She always did seem to enjoy getting the better of the admiral from time to time. "He won't accept help, so it's up to Sam to get Phillip to help him."

"You mean..." Al hesitated, then broke into a wild grin. "Sam would have to act so incompetent that he'll need Phillip's help for everything. Well, that shouldn't be too hard..."

July 1998  
Pensacola, FL

Sam Beckett sat quietly, reading through the rank structure of the United States Marine Corps. Thanks to his photographic memory, he didn't have to study as his classmates did, but he was enjoying the bit of peace and quiet before his class began. He had learned that in the afternoon, they were scheduled for drill, and was grateful that the rest of the class would be nearly as ignorant of drill procedures as he was. He was also grateful that it was Friday and, through eavesdropping on his fellow classmates, he'd learned that the Drill Instructors went home for the weekend and didn't tend to hang around at all unless there was a brand new class in the building, which there wasn't. Not until next week, he'd been told.

He would be grateful to finish this assignment and leap out of here. Everything about it was tiring: the Pensacola heat that brought with it humidity you could almost see in the air, the cockroaches that scattered before your feet like shifting sand at night, and then there was the military... The environment was so restrictive to Sam that he could never understand how someone like Al Calavicci not only flourished in it, but relished every aspect. Then again, there was an order that was unmistakable and it would have offered the admiral everything he didn't have when he was growing up. One thing for certain: you always knew where you stood.

A stray memory slid out into the open and he could clearly recall Al talking about how much he missed working with other uniformed personnel versus the civilians he mostly encountered at Project Quantum Leap, how comfortable he felt being able to walk into a room of people he didn't know and "read all of their resumes on their chest". He shook his head imperceptibly, smiling slightly. Any memory he could grasp was a treasure now.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Simms walk into the room and take her seat next to him. She seemed cheerful enough as she tossed him a weary smile (they'd been up late last night studying for today's exam), but he noticed the way she favored her right leg as she'd entered the classroom.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked her, putting down his papers and twisting in his seat to face her. He felt almost protective of her, a feeling that stemmed from the respect he had for her being only one of a few women in the class against the 23 men. That, and she always seemed so cheerful – Sam couldn't imagine how. She was just one of those people who was able to pull this cloak over her and not concern herself with what was going on outside of it. Yelling didn't seem to faze her and neither did those moments when they found themselves face-to-face with camouflage. Despite himself, Sam could never seem to stop himself from dreading the times they left the safety of the classroom and, had she not confided in him from the beginning about her nervousness, he would have thought she never experienced the same.

Simms hesitated at his question, then inched her chair closer to the leaper. "Honestly, my right knee has been bothering me the past couple days. Every run we do just irritates it more. I almost dropped out this morning." She elbowed him. "Speaking of which, how could you drop out? You're the runner in the group. You've run marathons!"

_Oops._ "I, uh, got a cramp in my calf muscle. It was killing me."

"Oh, well, it's just one run," she commented offhandedly, but Sam couldn't help feeling she was a bit disappointed in him. "How's Phillip? He dropped out, too, didn't he?"

Mentally, Sam leapt upon the opportunity to drag one of his classmates in on the goal of bringing Phillip into the group. He obviously wasn't getting anywhere on his own and, as strange as it may have seemed, perhaps he would be more willing to listen to a woman. "Yeah, he did." He pursed his lips for a second, then pressed on. "I don't think he's doing so well here. Have you ever talked to him?"

She lowered her eyes briefly, then raised them again, but didn't quiet meet Sam's. Her gaze hovered at the level of his collarbone and remained there. "No. He seems...shy. I don't think he wants to talk to anyone here."

Sam studied her carefully, debating with himself on how to draw her into the plan.

"Hi, Sam."

The scientist jumped slightly and then straightened in his seat, trying to hide the reflex from his companion. He settled for a glare at his observer, standing just behind Simms.

"Oh, sorry," Al amended, not looking sorry at all. He stood out in the sea of khaki in his peacock green suit, silver shoes, and teal and black striped shirt. He punctuated the outfit with a small but genuine smile that made his eyes sparkle in the Imaging Chamber light. "You made any progress?"

"Not yet," Sam said without thinking.

"Not yet?" Simms echoed. "You have a plan to get him to talk?"

Al's smile progressed to a full-out grin. "Bingo," he crowed. "You set that up pretty well, pal."

Sam's face was a mirror of Al's. Even if he had been at liberty to talk to the hologram, he decided, he still wouldn't have told him that the way Simms had played so perfectly into his scheme had been entirely unintentional. "I'm getting there," he conceded. "You want to help?"

Simms swung around to face the front of the class as the instructor entered the room. "He's part of the team, isn't he?"

The rest of the students milling around began to take their seats and Al moved to stand off to Sam's left. He looked at Simms thoughtfully, and then a familiar glint came into his eyes. "Y'know, Sam, she's really cute."

Sam snuck a last glance out of the corner of his eye before turning to face the front of the classroom himself. Al was right, he had to admit. Simms was a slight, fit woman with enough curves to make his friend drool a little. Her blonde hair was cropped short like all the other women at OCS, but it only served to show off the delicate shape of her face and add light to her deep blue eyes.

While Al was still appreciating (and Sam was trying in vain to get his attention), the instructor called the class to order and Al immediately shifted focus. The instructor was a young petty officer who, Sam's class had been told by older classes, every male officer candidate fell in love with.

"Sam," Al hissed, even though there was no cause for him to keep his voice low, "what class is this?"

Sam sighed audibly and turned to the first chapter in the syllabus, pointing at the title.

"Naval History?" The observer licked his lips and his eyes settled just below her collar. "Well, damn the torpedoes..."

"Al!" Sam whispered fiercely, as loud as he dared. The last thing he needed now was for Al's libido to take him off on a tangent: he'd been here two grueling days and was no closer to finding the key to completing this leap. Phillip was still a locked safe and, though Sam knew his history, knew he was at odds with his family, he found that a difficult thing to relate to and utilize in his quest to befriend the young man. It wasn't that Phillip was bitter, or angry, or stubborn...he was just closed down, and Sam didn't know how to ignite that fire of life again.

Al let his mind and gaze wander for a few more seconds before resigning himself to his task. "Okay, buddy, sorry. It's just hard enough to be a hologram and not touch – I ought to get to look now and then!" Sam glowered. The instructor began handing out the exams for the week and Sam took one and passed it back. History was all memorization and so he had no fears that he would be able to score his host a more than satisfactory grade. He began to write slowly, focused only partly on the exam and the rest on his observer. "The gang and I were brainstorming about your leap, here, and Dr. Beeks may have come up with an idea. If you can't get Phillip to accept help, then you're going to have to get him to help you. I mean, it shouldn't be too hard for you." He snorted lightly. "You fit in here even less than Phillip does. You should try and find something that he's good at, something you can connect with on his level instead of trying to bring him into something he's already bad at." He paused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "For example, Foster says that he's good at shining shoes." He bent to eye Sam's leathers, scuffed and dull from being forced to do push-ups in the dirt. "That should be perfect – yours look terrible."

Sam narrowed his eyes and scribbled "What about Simms?" on the upper left corner of his exam. He left Al a few seconds to read it, then erased it.

"Simms?" Al inquired, then glanced at the woman sitting to Sam's right, chewing anxiously on the eraser of her pencil. "What about her?" Sam raised an eyebrow and realization dawned. "Oh, you want her bio? Why, you got something going on there, pal? Forget I said that," he inserted smoothly before Sam could react in any other negative way. He pulled out the handlink and it lit up like Mardi Gras. "Give me a little bit, I'll have Ziggy run the complete check. In the meantime, finish your test."

Sam turned his full concentration on the exam, barely registering Al as he roamed around the room, glancing over the shoulders of many unsuspecting officer candidates, occasionally making a "tsk tsk" noise when he found a wrong answer. _The man's way too at home, here,_ Sam thought dryly.

Sam was the second one to complete the test and he got up, turned it in, and was then told he could use his time as he pleased. On his way back to the desk, he glanced first at Simms, who was busy writing, and then at Phillip, who wore a frustrated look, but was nonetheless scribbling away. He didn't have cause to worry, though: Ziggy had said nothing about him failing this evolution.

No sooner had he sat down than the handlink gave a cheerful chirp and Al retrieved it from the pocket it had been banished to. "Oh, Sam, we have something for you." Sam stood up again and he moaned lightly. "I know, I know - the head." He trailed Sam out into the hallway and fell into step beside his friend. "How did you do?"

"Oh, I did fine," Sam remarked, and started to slip his hands in his pockets, catching himself at the last minute. There were no drill instructors here to yell at him for doing so, but he figured he shouldn't get in the habit anyway. "Andreas should have no cause to complain. What do you have on - what is her first name, anyway?"

"Grace," Al supplied as they marched into the head and Sam checked under the stalls to ensure he wasn't going to be listened to. "Why are you so curious about this girl, anyway? She's not the focus of your leap, Sam." The tone was vaguely accusatory and Sam wondered if he didn't believe something was going on after all.

"First of all, she's going to help me with Phillip. Second…I don't know, Al." Sam frowned and leaned up against a porcelain sink, crossing his arms over his chest. Al remained silent, waiting for him to find the words. "I think maybe I am here for her, too."

Al was shaking his head before the sentence was all the way out. "No, no, no, I don't think so, Sam." He dragged the handlink back up into his field of vision. "Nothing happens to her. Grace Simms, age 21, born in some little town in Northern California, two brothers, both of whom went into the Marines. She got her degree in mechanical engineering, but didn't find anything in the field that suited her, so she decided to join the Navy instead." Al started to pace slowly as he recited. "She earns her commission with her class here and goes on to be a Surface Warfare Officer. Does her first tour on a destroyer out of Norfolk, Virginia, is currently negotiating orders for her second tour." He lowered the 'link low enough to peer over the top of it at Sam. "See? She's fine."

Sam refused to be swayed. "Al, you're only, what, two - three years into the future?" He didn't pause to see if Al would answer, mostly because he knew he wouldn't, and pressed on quickly. "Who knows what could happen to her five years further on? Or more."

"Well, if you want to go with that theory, we'd be out to save everyone here because who knows what would happen to them? Besides, how would you have any idea what to fix if you don't know anything that went wrong?"

They were valid points, Sam had to admit, but he refused to be swayed. At times like this, he was even more stubborn than Al. "No, Al, I know I'm here for her, too. I feel it in my gut and I've learned to listen to that feeling when I get it, especially in reference to a leap. How many times have I been wrong?" Al opened his mouth but Sam cut him off, realizing that with his scattered memory, he may have just opened himself up to criticism, but one thing he was certain of. "Not as many times as Ziggy, I'm sure."

Sam continued to stare at Al and, gradually, the admiral relented. "Okay, Sam. But my question remains: what do you propose to do to help her?"

He furrowed his brow. "I'm not sure. But I'll know when I see it."

Al seemed about to reply, but then the door swung open and the Class Leader, Holguin, popped his head around the edge of the door to look around. "There you are, Foster." He moved all the way into the head, letting the door swing shut behind him. "We're leaving in about five minutes. Lunch and then drill."

"Drill," Sam repeated dully, a knot forming in his stomach. A two-hour block in the blistering Florida sun with the man who made Frankenstein look like Mary Poppins was not his idea of fun.

"It's really not that bad," Al put in. "You may enjoy it. I remember seeing the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon – oh, man were they fantastic!"

Holguin, who couldn't hear Al, of course, spoke over him. "I don't know, I'm kinda looking forward to it. I just hope we get to spend more time on drill than we do in the grass." He shrugged and started to leave, but Sam put a hand out to stop him.

"Hey, as Class Leader, I'm hoping you can help me out with something I was thinking about."

Holguin took up position in front of the neighboring sink, leaning against it and taking up a position that was almost a mirror image of Sam's. "What's up?"

"Ask him about the big Military Training Test you guys have in two weeks, Sam, that'll set you up," Al coached.

"I was thinking about this Military Training Test and I'm a little anxious about it."

"I know, we're all a little tense over it, but we've got two more weeks to prepare. I don't think you have too much to worry about."

"Well, I was just thinking about preparing and I thought that maybe we could set up some kind of assembly line format? I was watching Phillip – Hutchins," Sam corrected hastily, "and he's great at shining shoes. That's...what made me think of it." He hesitated, feeling like he was starting to ramble, not missing the way Holguin was starting to look constantly at his watch. "Anyway, it's just an idea."

"Um, yeah, ok, great. For now, we better go line up." He turned without further preamble and departed the room, all business, leaving Sam to feel like this plan would never come to fruition.

Al gave him a sympathetic look. "Don't worry, pal, we'll make it happen. Just go survive drill and then tonight we'll start chipping away at that tough exterior of Phillip's."

Sam sighed deeply and dropped his arms to his sides. "It's just so frustrating. This isn't the best environment to do this in. I can barely find two times a day to talk to him!"

"Yeah... You better get going, kid," Al nudged him gently. The last thing Sam needed to do was get his whole class in the grass because he held them up. The leaper nodded slowly and left the room, leaving the image of his best friend to shake his head slowly, then punch out.


	6. Chapter 5

**OCS**

**Chapter 5**

October 2000  
Stallions Gate, NM

Albert Calavicci entered his office slowly, a small smile tugging at his lips. He'd just had a particularly...satisfying encounter with Tina and now he was ready to try to get a little work done. He clicked on the light (preferring the manual method to Sam's voice-activated toy) and sat behind the desk, sinking into the cushioned chair. He had insisted on the most expensive chair he could find; he knew ahead of time he would be spending an extraordinary amount of time in it, but even he had underestimated just how much. He was toying with buying a new chair with a massager in it.

Al leaned back and thought of his conversation with Sam. His friend had been right, though he wouldn't admit it at the time. There were many times over the past five years when Sam's gut instinct had been proven correct, a fact that had amazed Al the first few times. Back before Sam had leaped, he relied on facts, figures, statistics – never his gut, never just what he felt was right. If he didn't have the data to back it up, he didn't believe it. It's what made him a good scientist, and it was why he designed Ziggy the way he did, because he thought he knew that if he was in the past, he would want a good base of those facts upon which he had always relied.

Al, on the other hand, didn't tend to trust anything without a gut check first. He and Sam had spent hours arguing about various aspects of Project Quantum Leap when it was still in its initial stages of creation and, no matter how many facts and statistics Sam would put before his friend, it all came back to that inner instinct that drove his actions. It made Sam absolutely crazy, which served as an added bonus. What made him even crazier was that, most of the time, Al was right.

What Sam didn't realize was it was Al's gut that had gotten him through a nearly unbearable childhood. It had gotten him through a dozen episodes on the street when he'd fled the confining walls of the orphanage and had led him to the Navy. It had seen him through the maze of Vietnam and the jungle of Washington. It wasn't, as Sam proclaimed it, a lucky guess, it was a finely honed measure of the fight or flight instinct and Al had paid dearly to perfect it.

The admiral sighed and propped his feet up on the corner of his shiny mahogany desk, leaning back slightly in his brown leather chair, and pulled out a cigar. He ran his hands lightly over it, prolonging the moment of satisfaction when he would light it, and thought about Sam. He thought about the Navy, about OCS, and about Phillip.

Phillip. And Grace.

Grace Simms seemed tough, smart, and together, but maybe she was just better at hiding it than Phillip. Maybe they were more alike than he'd bargained for, and maybe Sam had realized that. In the case of leaps, he had to admit to himself, Sam's gut was more accurate than his own. The scientist had finally fine-tuned his own sensors.

Al reached over to a stack of paperwork and picked absently at the corner of the top page. Budget reports: the worst kind of paperwork. Making numbers add up when they didn't want to was one of the hardest aspects of the job, and the Senate Committee had seen fit to cut them back. Again.

With a soft sigh of resignation, he swung his legs down, the soles of his shoes hitting the floor with a dull "thud", and leaned into the stack with a feigned vigor, actually forgetting about the abandoned cigar on the edge of his desk in his determination to dispose of the unpleasant task. He'd only been working for 15 minutes when his thoughts drifted back to the leap, this time to Andreas, sitting in the waiting room.

He refocused on the paper, reading the same sentence about half a dozen times before finally squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his thumb and forefinger hard into the corners. He collapsed back into the chair in frustration and accepted the fact that he wasn't going to get any work done today.

He got up, finally retrieving his cigar, and lit it as he walked. He nodded absently to vaguely familiar faces and he wandered the halls ending up, to no surprise, at the door of the Waiting Room. He hesitated outside for an instant, then went up to the observation booth where there was always an ashtray laying around, and smothered the cigar. He glanced through the one-way mirror and saw Andreas Foster doing push-ups in the center of the room, his form flawless, although the Naval Admiral expected nothing less from an OCS candidate.

Al pushed the melancholy air from his mood as best as he could and marched through the door, holding out a hand to forestall Foster jumping to attention. The leapee stood quickly, but then shifted to a loose interpretation of the "parade rest" posture.

"Hey, kid, how's it going?" Al asked casually, motioning for Andreas to sit in one of the three chairs in the corner of the room. When Sam first took that fateful step into the Accelerator, all the Waiting Room housed was one solitary bench, a good three feet high, with (unwisely, Al thought) a reflective surface. Over the years, Verbena and her small staff had tried to make it more comfortable. A small round table surrounded by the chairs sat in one corner and a modest cot in the opposite. The table in the center of the room was covered with a sheet until Verbena felt it safe to expose the visitor to the mirror.

Al sat across from Andreas and folded his hands, setting them with exaggerated care onto the surface in front of himself. "How are you doing?"

Without seeming to realize it, Andreas sat slightly forward in his seat, his back ramrod straight. "I'm doing ok. A little bored. What is my class up to?"

"Oh, they just started drill practice," Al replied.

"Oh." Andreas looked slightly troubled. "I don't want to be behind when I go back," he explained. "It could be...very painful."

"I'm sure we could dig up some references for you."

"Thank you, sir."

Al cleared his throat slightly, suddenly not certain why he'd come in here. He didn't have anything to tell Andreas, didn't have any questions. The leap had made disturbingly little progress since the last time they'd spoken. "Do you like your classmate, Simms?" he asked, veering for the safe road of "small talk".

"I do."

"How do you think she's holding up under the pressure?"

"It's hard to say, really... I mean, we were only together a week and there's not a lot of time to talk and get to know each other, you know what I mean?" Al nodded, but let the young man continue uninterrupted. "I do think she's nervous all the time, though."

The admiral gaped slightly. "Really?"

"Oh, yeah. The women – they get picked on a lot more than the guys. They're not as fast on the runs and they stand out a lot more, especially because there's fewer of them. I think she puts on a brave front because she wants to come off as one of the guys, but she's anxious about making a wrong move."

"Good to know, thanks, Foster."

The silence descended again and Al shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Finally, it was Andreas who broke the stillness. "Is there anything else you needed to know?"

Al looked at him and suddenly saw himself at that age. Not personality-wise, of course – Andreas had grown up with a loving family and had made the decision to come into the service because he decided it was a good thing to do, not because he was worried about how he would feed and clothe himself. Even so, Al saw the sense of excitement in Andreas, even below the tense apprehension of facing something so new and foreign, and he remembered that sense when he'd first joined up – the feeling that he could go anywhere and do anything, the feeling that he was free.

"You know, Andreas, I've been in the Navy a while, now. My rank isn't really important, but I'm not exactly a boot ensign." Andreas tensed slightly, but then relaxed and Al smiled. "I don't say that to make you more nervous around me, I just thought...maybe I could tell you about my time in and what it meant to me."

They sat there, a two-star admiral who probably would never make three, hovering on the verge of retirement at the end of a full, meaningful career, and an officer candidate, just starting out, on the edge of when anything is possible. Once Al started, he talked incessantly, suddenly realizing that maybe he'd just missed talking with other people who understood his world. Andreas listened with rapt attention, understanding for the first time that it wasn't just a senior officer he was talking to, it was a man who'd once been where he was.

The hours slid by without either noticing.

July 1998  
Pensacola, FL

Drill turned out to be the most enjoyable part of the whole leap, which wasn't saying much. He found, much to his surprise, that he actually had an aptitude for it, unlike every other aspect of military life. In between sessions in the grass, Sam found that Burles was an adept teacher and, while he didn't compliment anyone, as such, he did tend to march past Sam after each new position with a piercing glare and a reluctant snort of approval. They had covered "order arms" and were halfway through "present arms" when the time ended and they were packing everything up for the next evolution.

Dinner was as uneventful as it could be for a class in their second week and Sam decided that evening, when the Marines went home, he would put his plan into action. With Simms' help, he approached the Class Leader again, this time with more success, and the assembly line was born. Sam discovered that he also had a hidden talent for ironing, so he took that station, conveniently positioning himself next to Phillip. Grace crossed over to his other side, throwing Sam a wink as she did so and picking up the Brasso to start on the brass buckles.

Phillip zoned out as he shone the mountain of black shoes at his feet, and Sam wondered where he was. Was he back at home with his family who had rejected him? Was he at college where he'd probably wanted to stay? Maybe, like Grace, he just went to his own place where he could be still and quiet and nobody would pressure him. Sam had a place like that: home. He just wished he could trust his memory to conjure a picture of it that he could be sure was complete. Like his memory, the visual image seemed to have its own black holes that sucked everything into them.

After a lengthy silence, Grace decided to break in and try to get things rolling. "Hey, Hutchins, thanks for your help. I am rotten at shining shoes," she said in a cheery voice that sounded just a little too forced to be comfortable.

"Your shoes always look great," Phillip countered, showing that he paid attention more than either Sam or Grace had realized.

"Not as good as yours," she countered. "Besides, Foster's are a nightmare, I think we can both agree on that."

Phillip hooked a finger into the mouth of Sam's left shoe and pulled it closer for an inspection. After a pause, he agreed, "Looks like an elephant ran over it." It could have been a joke, but his tone was flat.

"Thanks, Ph - Hutchins," Sam answered wryly. "Hey, do you mind if I call you Phillip? This whole last name thing is still kind of strange to me."

Phillip shrugged, but then turned to Simms. "What's your first name?"

She smiled. "Grace." When Phillip turned back to the shoes, she gave Sam a triumphant grin over his head.

"I think she likes you, Sam," Al said out of nowhere and Sam jumped and ran the hot iron against his left pinky finger. Al cringed as Sam yelped and stuck his finger in his mouth, and then blew on it. "Sorry."

"You okay?" Grace asked. Sam nodded.

"See?" Al continued. "I've been chatting with Andreas a lot and I think he likes her, too. Seems to have paid her a lot of attention considering they've known each other two weeks." He tapped the handlink with his forefinger. "Of course, the kid's engaged… Be kind of dirty if he was falling for another girl…but I bet she still likes him."

"Mmm." Sam's tone was as non-committal as the word.

Al stared at the handlink for a few moments, idly thinking about the conversation, reviewing the way Andreas' eyes would light up when he made reference to Grace. He obviously respected her a great deal, but Al thought there was more to it than that. He glanced back up when he felt eyes looking at him and met Sam's frustrated glare. "I don't really have anything new for you, Sam," he said in self-defense. "I just mostly came to check up on you. The odds have gone down 5 percent that Phillip will leave OCS, but that isn't much considering the normal fluctuations of 3-6 percent in any given leap."

"How did you like drill?" Grace was asking.

"It's been the least objectionable activity here thus far, I guess," Phillip conceded.

"Sounds like you two are getting him talking," Al observed, reaching for a cigar and flicking his lighter open.

"Mmm." This time, it didn't sound as annoyed as before. Maybe a reluctant concession?

Sam decided it was time to make some progress with this kid. "So, Phillip, you said you were from Boston? Did you work there?"

Phillip paused in his ministrations, as if trying to gather the energy for small talk. "No, that's where I went to school."

"Oh? What made you decide to come into the Navy?"

Again a hesitation, longer this time, and the circular motions didn't resume when he began talking. "My…father."

Sam knew as much as Ziggy had provided, knew that his father had rejected him for not wanting to go into the family business, and he wasn't sure what the response meant. It seemed Al shared in his confusion.

"Does he mean he came in to spite his father, or because he wanted to make him proud?"

Sam shrugged, but remained silent. He wasn't sure how to follow up the statement without potentially embarrassing or upsetting Phillip in a hallway with 20 other people.

Grace, however, did not have the benefit of a friend from the future with history at his fingertips, and she dove right in. "Your father? He wanted you to come in?"

"He…" The white rag worked furiously, now. "He was a Navy pilot. Big shot. Got all these awards and recognitions. It's kind of a legacy in my family to become a Naval officer."

"Wow," Grace breathed, suitably impressed.

Al jabbed at his handlink and exhaled. "Sam, I'm not the only one blowing smoke around here," he said emphatically, gesturing with the cigar. "Ziggy still insists he has a 4-man auto shop in Nowheresville, Ohio. He inherited the business from **his** father and he certainly never became an officer in the Navy, much less got a college degree."

"I know," Sam returned.

"Yeah," Grace agreed, mistaking his comment for an affirmation of her amazement. "That must be really awesome. He's not in anymore?"

"Uh, no, he got out after six years."

Grace reached for another rag, smiling. "He must be so proud of you."

Phillip blushed and held his head a little higher. He no longer looked like a turtle trying to hide in its shell. "Oh, he is. My whole family is."

Al stepped in front of the young man, shaking his head. "Y'know, Sam, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Andreas doesn't like Grace, maybe Phillip does." Sam raised an eyebrow. "Why else would he tell all those lies? Poor kid…must really be hard for him to accomplish so much and not have his family recognize that." He glanced at the brightly colored screen again. "'Course, the odds of him dropping out just went down another 15 percent. Maybe this is for the best." He sounded doubtful.

Sam shook his head. He couldn't express it with prying ears, but he knew it wasn't for the best, just as Al did. Phillip was lying because he was ashamed, even though he had nothing to be ashamed of. There was no shame in having a father who did manual work all his life. Sam's own father worked with his hands until the day he died and he had the respect of everyone in the town and the undying loyalty of his own family. But Sam had known that wasn't for him, and his father had encouraged him, had wanted a better life for him. Phillip's father didn't seem to have wanted that, but maybe it was because Phillip didn't respect his father for what he'd accomplished, either.

Sam couldn't very well confront Phillip with information Andreas would have know way of knowing, so he kept silent. On the one hand, Phillip's face brightened each time one of his classmates came to collect their shoes and commented on the mirror polish, on what a genius Phillip was with shoe polish, and each time Grace spoke to him. On the other hand, this lie of his was bound to catch up with him and, when it did, it would blow up in his face. Sam resolved to speak to him the first quiet moment they could get together. Maybe hint that he suspected Phillip wasn't being completely honest, maybe ask questions until he caught him in another lie, one that he could prove.

Or maybe he could tell his own truth.

"My dad was a construction worker," he said and both Grace and Phillip turned to him.

"Oh." Phillip didn't seem to know how else to respond. Grace just looked quietly at them both and said nothing.

"What are you thinkin', Sam?" Al asked quietly, probably not expecting a response.

"Yeah." He glanced at Al. "Not anything really glamorous, but it got us by. He was away a lot."

The admiral chewed slowly on the end of the cigar. Anger and understanding warred for dominance in his face, but Sam couldn't use his own story. He'd never wanted to come into the military, never understood it's appeal, but Al had. It was a haven for Phillip in a way, as it had been for Al.

For once, Phillip didn't seem timid or emotionless and flat. He was curious. "He never went to college?"

"No," Sam said in simple tones. "He was not a college person. He got by on hard work and dedication, though. I really admired him for that."

"Yeah," Al murmured, his cigar smoking, forgotten at his side. "I did."

"He didn't want you to follow in his footsteps?" Phillip asked, engrossed in the idea.

"No… Even if he had, it wasn't for me. But I worked hard, too, to make my own opportunities. That's what we're doing now, isn't it? Working hard to make our opportunities for ourselves?"

"I never thought of it that way."

Al was quiet and subdued, but finally seemed to remember himself. "Sam, I'd better be going. You keep at him, okay? You're doing good, kid."

He punched out and Sam exhaled heavily. He hadn't been comfortable doing that in front of his friend, but it seemed to have caused Phillip to think, anyway.

"Well," said Grace, breaking the stillness, "I'm done here. Maybe we should go down the line and get all our things? Then we can help each other get our lockers set up?"

Phillip didn't respond to her false cheeriness the way he had throughout the evening; instead he just nodded and hauled himself to his feet.

Sam followed along, half listening as Grace filled up the silence with chatter, and just hoped he had gotten through to Phillip without causing any unwanted memories to resurface for Al. If he hadn't, he was going to fail and Phillip was going to ruin his life.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

October 2000  
Stallions Gate, NM

Years ago, when Al was upset by something, he would retreat to some haven (like an old office, never his own), turn out all the lights, and drink. He'd loved the numbness as it washed over him and the never ending loop of images and noises in his head would slow and grind to a halt. Though Al had lost the mental dependence on alcohol, he hadn't lost the need to quiet the reel for a time so he could regain balance and focus. So, now, when he had too much to deal with, he did the one thing he couldn't do when he drank: he drove.

Al Calavicci checked to ensure his cell phone was on loud enough to be heard over the roaring engine and pulled out of the project lot into the blackness. At first Al had dreaded the idea of working in the middle of nowhere, miles from a restaurant of any kind, let alone a decent one, and hours from a city. How, he had demanded, was he supposed to get in any recreational activity? Sam, knowing what kind of activity that indicated, had simply chosen to pretend the question hadn't been asked; they both knew the requirements for a project of this level classification. Now he found he loved the seclusion, the uninterrupted stars in the night sky and the feeling that he was the only living thing on the planet.

In a way, it recalled memories of being in space, of watching that perfect blue marble rotating below him, of feeling that he had all the power in the world.

Al pulled out onto the dirt road that headed further into nowhere and hit the gas, allowing the speedometer to creep up to 100 and then past. Why not? There were no cops to stop him, no one he could hit, and miles of straight road.

At first, he let his mind go blank. The tension started to drain out of him, like a muscle held taunt for too long. He imagined the concerns and responsibilities draining through his feet, through the floor of the car, leaving a stream of drops along the dusty road as he tore through the desert. He felt the vibrations of the machine loosening him physically, and started to feel better equipped to think about the thoughts that had been spinning through his head.

First, he allowed the anger to come. Anger that his best friend would pore out his story to strangers. Sam was only doing what he had to complete the leap, Al knew that, and he couldn't very well turn to the air beside him and ask the man who didn't really exist if he could use his own tragic history. Even so, knowing something and feeling something were two different things, and so he let the anger at the invasion drain away with the tension. In his mind, it left a blood red trail of liquid behind the vehicle, the dots slowly becoming further and further apart until it was gone.

Sam didn't know if Al's father had wanted him to follow in his footsteps or not, partly because Al had never talked about it with him, but mostly because Al himself wasn't sure. He knew his father was proud of his work and would have been proud of his son for doing the same, but it also took him away from his family, and he knew his father did not like that aspect of the job. His father never knew the ultimate price of his constant absence. If only they'd been in one place for long enough, maybe they could have made friends with neighbors. Maybe when his father had left, they could have been sent to live with someone else, and maybe Trudy would still…

Al curbed the line of thought before it could go any further. He was thinking of his father, not Trudy. What happened to Trudy was nobody's fault: not his, not his father's. If there was a heaven, Trudy was probably much happier now than she had ever been on this blue dot that looked so blissful from space.

The speedometer wavered towards 120 mph and Al held it steady there, glancing for a split second at the phone to ensure the message light wasn't blinking. He let the speed relax him again before resuming his ritual cleansing.

Al could remember all the times his father had come to get him out of the orphanage. He remembered every detail of them, down to the disapproving look the nuns would give them as they were leaving. In their minds, he supposed, he was a troublemaker and didn't deserve time away from the orphanage. Or maybe that was just the perceptions of a boy who saw the nuns as a group of strict women who took special pleasure in making them all miserable instead of an adult who respected anyone who would dedicate their lives to trying to make a home for a group of children nobody wanted.

Most of all, though, Al remembered the house. He remembered his father coming home, his freedom which turned out to be too brief, and the home they'd lived in as a family before his father got sick. His father had taught Al some of his trade, but had he done it expecting his son to follow in his footsteps?

Unbidden, the thoughts turned to his father lying in a hospital bed. Trudy was there, not comprehending anything, and Al envied her for it. She just loved, in her sweet, tender way, and never seemed to worry about the future as Al did. His father had spoken more of the immediate future than what he'd wanted for his son's life. He'd asked for prayers, prayers Al had come to hate, and he told Al over and over how proud he was of him. Al had sat by his father's bedside because he had no place else to go, and held his father's thin hand in both of his, and cried and prayed.

When his father died, the tears stopped and all his mourning turned inward. Trudy had shed a single tear at the funeral, but more because she was told she'd be separated from Al and their father than because of any real comprehension of her father's death. When Al tried to explain it to her, she seemed satisfied to accept that her father was in heaven and so there was nothing to grieve for.

Al sighed heavily and started to ease off the gas pedal. The memories gushed out a deep blue, staining the highway.

No, his father had never said what he'd wanted from his son, whether he wanted a legacy through occupation, but Al felt in his heart that one thing was true: his father had wanted him to be happy. And, he thought almost as if realizing it for the first time, he was.

Al slowed the car to a halt and got out, leaving the engine idling behind him, wrapping his arms about himself as the desert chill hit him head on. He looked up at the sky, unmarred by city lights, and sighed again. "If only You would bring Sam back, now, we could both be happier," he murmured, almost without realizing it. "I hope you are proud of me, Papa," he added wistfully. "I honor you the best way I know how."

He smiled suddenly, filled with a warmth that didn't come from the night air, got back in his car, and made a U-turn.

When the admiral returned to the project, bad news greeted him at the door. He stood in the Control Room, irritation gnawing at him again. "Run that by me again, Gooshie?"

The programmer stood behind the console, acting as if it was a shield from what could often progress from annoyance to wrath. If he had known that action often spurred Al to anger much faster, he would have moved.

"Admiral, the projections have changed. Now he drops out in three days."

Al opened his mouth to snap at him, stopped, and took a calming breath. He couldn't build up enough liquid to necessitate another car ride: he didn't have that much free time that he could be cavorting around the desert at all hours on a regular basis. "Why didn't you call me on my cell phone?"

He heard the door open behind him as someone else came into the room and he just knew it had to be Verbena. That woman always seemed to show up just when he was feeling most on edge.

"I told him not to call you, Admiral," Verbena's sweet voice interrupted.

_I should go to Vegas. I should be earning money off this talent._ He schooled his face into a blank expression, then turned to look at her. She wasn't fooled, he could see immediately. "Why not?"

"You've got three days, Al," she pointed out gently. "An hour or two wasn't going to change that."

He chewed on a cigar and shrugged. "I guess you're right." He reached for the handlink. "I'm gonna go see Sam."

Gooshie powered up the Imaging Chamber and Al stepped through and stood in his usual station, watching the world materialize around him. When it settled into focus, he found himself in Sam's room and, amazingly, the scientist was alone. Sam glanced up at his friend and smiled, somewhat timidly. "Hi, Al."

"Sam," Al returned with a slight nod. "How's it going?"

"Okay. Phillip talked to Grace all night. Today's been pretty low-key because all the drill instructors are gone, so we're pretty much just on our own, getting things ready for inspection." He hesitated, then asked, "How are you doing?"

Al tried to put the blank, expressionless mask on again, but then realized if it had been futile with Verbena, it would definitely be a lost cause with his best friend. Even with half a memory missing, Sam will had an uncanny way of knowing just when Al was distracted or upset. "Fine," he replied, then waited.

"About yesterday, I'm sorry, Al… I didn't mean to upset you or air your past to everyone."

"You didn't, Sam." The scientist look doubtfully at him and Al retreated. "Okay, well you did, a little, but I understand what you did it. Pretty smart, actually." He smiled at him. "Do you think Phillip will come clean with the truth?"

"Oh, well…" Sam sighed deeply and returned to the activity he was engaged in when Al came through the Door, which was folding a t-shirt into a perfect square. Al grimaced slightly at the memory of his own wrestling matches with clothing. "I doubt it. It took him this long to start talking at all, he's not going to admit he lied. I don't think he did it maliciously, or even to get Grace and I to like him, I think it just slipped out because he was ashamed of his situation and then he didn't know any way to undo what he'd done."

It was a fair assessment. "I think you're right." Al pulled the handlink into his line of vision. "And it changed something."

Sam paused, studying his partner, then groaned. "Not for the better." It was a statement, not a question, but Al answered it anyway.

"Uh, no. Now he DORs in three days. That's Tuesday. In the evening." He whacked the handlink with the palm and it retorted with its usual squeal of protest. "We still don't know why." Sam looked troubled and Al felt a flash of pity for his partner, sorrow that they had been unable to bring him home. He pushed the feeling aside with great effort, as he always did. That particular regret had left miles and miles of trails on the roads. "Sam, have you given any thought as to how you're going to get to talk to Phillip without having to deal with this made-up reality of his? You'll embarrass him and he'll close right back up again."

"I know," Sam responded, a little sharply, "I'm open to suggestions."

_Oops. _"Well, I'm not sure either, except to just come right out and ask him."

"And how do I account for my information?"

Al opened his mouth, and closed it again. Sam had a point. The leap had been progressing along so well until Phillip threw a monkey wrench into the operation. He supposed he could talk to Andreas again, but the kid seemed to know even less about Phillip than they did. He was too closed off to share anything with his teammates here. There would be no blaming it on someone else blabbing the truth. "Just tell him you have a feeling."

"Hmm…" Sam resumed his work, but slower, and Al was sure something was spinning around in his brain, so he remained silent. "My other two roommates went to the phone line. I guess once a week everyone gets an opportunity to call home for a few minutes. Phillip didn't seem to want to, but he left a while ago and he hasn't been back."

Al tapped some ash from the end of his cigar. "Do you think Phillip decided to try and talk to his father?"

"Is there anyone else you think he'd call?"

"I suppose not, but I can't exactly tell you every single friend of his. I only know what data Ziggy can pull and piece together from various sources," he pointed out, holding up the handlink.

"I know one way you can find out." Sam smiled at his partner. "Are you up for a little eavesdropping?"

Al grinned back. "Always. I just love making things my business." He held up the 'link. "Gooshie, center me on Phillip."

The room popped out and immediately he found himself in a nondescript hallway with a line of about ten officer candidates. The shift of scenery was always a little jarring, but Al had gotten used to it over the years. If forced to think about all the things he'd had to adjust to, he tended to get a little bitter, so he let it pass.

There were two phones in little booths at the end of the hallway and one long line formed behind them. There were no drill instructors in sight and all the members of the senior class (another group to be "sir-ed" and "ma'am-ed") seemed to be elsewhere. The candidates were talking easily amongst themselves creating a low, but continuous murmur echoing down the concrete hallway. As luck would have it, Phillip was next in line and Grace was right behind him. She was talking about home, about her family and talking to her brothers, but Phillip didn't seem to be listening. Occasionally, she asked something about his father and what they would talk about, and he answered the questions with obvious discomfort. Sam was obviously right about Phillip regretting his blunder in lying about his family.

One of the other candidates hung up the phone he was on and nodded to Phillip as he left the booth, a slight look of homesickness on his face. Phillip walked up to the booth as if it was a guillotine. Al moved near to him, which necessitated a position half in the booth and half in the wall, yet another bizarre occurrence he was accustomed to.

"Come on, kid, go for it. Tell your dad how well you're doing, huh?" Al encouraged, an unheard cheerleader. He felt bad for the young man. Their situations may have been drastically different, but Al had always wished he'd had some family to call while he was at the academy, and Phillip did. Al wanted him to be able to call them and share good news, lament bad news.

Phillip took forever to dial – he pressed each number slowly and with great reluctance. Al leaned in closer until he could hear the faint sound of the phone ringing. It was going to be hard to hear this whole conversation.

After a few rings, a male voice said, "Hello?" and Phillip closed his eyes. He was obviously hoping it wouldn't be his father who answered the phone.

Phillip didn't speak for so long that his father repeated the question, sounding a little irritated. "Talk to him," Al urged again. He had no reason to think Phillip could hear him, but, on some level, Al had made a connection with someone from Sam's world before.

"Hi, Dad," Phillip said softly.

The silence on the other end was so long that Al leaned in closer, afraid he was missing one side of the conversation.

"Well," his father said finally, "it's about time we hear from you. Your brother told me you quit that big fancy school of yours."

The voice dripped with disdain and Al started to worry that this would be the thing that pushed Phillip over the edge, the thing that would make him feel like he wasn't worth anything, like he couldn't complete the program.

"I-" Phillip's voice cracked and he cleared his throat, "I couldn't stay."

"I told you you shouldn't have gone," his father retorted sternly. Al could clearly picture a crusty man dressed in greasy mechanic's coveralls, standing in the corner of a garage. "You have a responsibility to this family. Now," he continued, his gruff voice softening discernibly, "it's not too late to come home, son."

"Dad…I didn't quit college," Phillip stated slowly. "I finished. I graduated."

"If you graduated, then either way you're done with that nonsense. Come home and I'll train you in something you'll actually use. If you come up right away, I can have you trained by the winter rush. A lot of people's engines dying and a lot of body work from skidding on ice. You can make a real name for yourself here." Al shook his head and leaned closer, willing Phillip to stand up for himself.

"I…I can't, Dad." Phillip looked petrified, unsure of himself.

"Son, I can't keep having this conversation with you." His father's voice took on a hard edge. "You need to make up your mind where your loyalties lie. Your mother can't work since her hip surgery last spring and so your brother and I are all we have to keep the business going. This job put food in your belly and clothes on your back for 18 years and you'd turn your nose up at me now?"

"No, no, Dad, I'm not…" Phillip shifted uncomfortably on the stool. "I actually can't. I'm at boot camp – for the Navy."

"You're what?" he raged and Al flinched slightly at the tone in the man's voice, noting how Phillip had left out the "officer" part. Given how his father valued working with his hands, he probably wouldn't take well to hearing his son wasn't training to get his hands dirty any time soon. No wonder Phillip had invented a different personality to be his family; this man obviously didn't understand him, didn't even understand the drive to want more.

"It was the only way I could pay for college, Dad. I couldn't ask you for the money."

"Damn right! I wouldn't have given it to you, that's what. Waste of time. Why can't you be more like your brother? He understands family dedication."

"I wanted a good career for myself and now I can have one in the Navy and then another when I get out." He was pleading now but he hadn't backed down, yet.

"You didn't need to go to college for that. People do that because they can't find a career, can't make anything on their own – you already had one."

Indecision tore at Phillip's expression. He couldn't leave now, even if he wanted to. The Navy had paid for his education and he owed the military, now, and the Navy extracted payment in time. Even if he quit, he would still have a commitment to be enlisted, and he still wouldn't be able to go home and be all that his father had wanted him to be. Given the torn look, Al was glad going home wasn't an option for him because he wasn't sure the young man would have the strength to resist it, if only to keep the peace and earn back his father's respect. "Go for it, kid," Al encouraged, "from what I've heard, you don't have much to lose."

"I didn't want that career," he started. "I wanted something more."

Al winced.

"More? More?! This isn't good enough for you? What your father does and what your father's father did? How we earned a good, honest, decent living?" The man fell silent again and Al guessed he was trying to restrain the impulse to keep yelling.

"Dad, I want you to come to my graduation. Please? It's the reason I called."

"You are not my son," the man declared woodenly. "If you come back home, it will be to take your place in our business, or don't bother to come home at all."

"Dad-" Phillip began, but both he and the hologram heard the sharp click of the line being disconnected. Phillip looked for an instant as if he might cry, but then he took a shaky breath and hung up the phone.

Al punched out quickly and returned to Sam, recounting the phone call harshly in preparation for Phillip's eventual return.

"Al, that's horrible!" Sam exclaimed when his friend was finished. "Do you think he'll drop out even earlier?"

Al hastily consulted the 'link. "No, Ziggy still says in three days."

Phillip marched in at that moment, went straight to his rack, and sat on it, despite strict rules in place not to. The hospital corners, so perfect a moment ago, pulled slightly out from under the mattress. Sam didn't comment on it, but watched the young man pick up a pair of shoes he had already been working on for hours, and commence shining.

"Hey, Phillip," he started, trying to sound casual. "Get any phone time?"

The look in his eye when he glanced up was not one Sam or Al had seen on his face yet. "Foster, can't you mind your business for one minute? Can't you just let me sit here and study in peace?"

"I'm sorry, I-" Sam started, but Phillip tossed the shoes down on the rack and left.

"Should I follow him?" Al asked, poised to punch the command into the handlink.

Sam shook his head sadly, still looking out the door towards the direction he'd gone. "No. Let's leave him alone. I don't think we'll find out anything more now."

Al nodded in agreement. "We'll help him, Sam. Don't worry about that."

"How?" Sam demanded. "Talk to his father?" Realization dawned. "Talk to his father…" he repeated in a contemplative tone.

"Sam, no, you didn't hear this guy. He's very proud and he wouldn't take well to you butting into his business. You'll just make things harder in Phillip in the long run." Al was talking fast, trying to race against the gears turning in Sam's head.

"Al, it couldn't make it any worse," Sam declared, getting up to join the line of officer candidates one deck down.

"Yes it can. Sam! Sam?" Al hollered after him, but was soon left alone in the room. "When is he going to learn to listen to me?" he demanded of nobody.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

July 1998  
Pensacola, FL

Sam marched decisively down the stairs, Al right behind him.

"Sam, I wouldn't call him. You don't want to butt in, do you?"

"As you say, butting in is our business."

There was only one person in line by the time Sam arrived and he stood behind him, as unsure of the possible outcomes as Al was. The two men waited in silence, Al's mind spinning for things to use to dissuade his partner.

Sam finally got a booth and turned to Al. "Give me the number."

"Sam, I don't think-"

"Al," Sam interrupted firmly.

Al held his gaze for several moments and then sighed, his shoulders drooping. Al knew when it was futile to argue with him, and this was one of those times. He was going to have his way on this, one way or another. "I'm doing this against my better judgment," he stated, then gave Sam the number for Ron Hutchins. Al resumed his position embedded in the wall of the booth just in time to hear the man pick up.

"Hello, Mr. Hutchins. You don't know me – I'm in the same class as your son, Phillip. My name is Andreas Foster."

Al braced himself for a sharp retort, some sign of the deep seated distrust and lack of respect between Phillip and his father, but it never came.

"Yes, Andreas, good to talk to a classmate of my son's." Al gaped slightly. "What can I do for you?"

Sam, too, was stunned into momentary silence and he hadn't been privy to the initial conversation, except through Al. "Well, sir, Phillip has told me all about his family-"

"-And how proud he is of them," Al prompted.

"-and how proud he is of them," Sam parroted obediently, "and he's just been doing so well. I just thought you should know that, and that our graduation is on October 2nd. I hope you can make it."

"Well," the man continued in a passive voice, "I'll certainly try. But my son could have told me that." Sam hesitated and Al searched his brain for an excuse. "Did he tell you to call me?

"Sam, don't let him think his son is too cowardly to call him again."

"No, I…just know he wants to do all this on his own, but he'd want you here."

"Hmm…"

"He doesn't sound convinced," Al murmured then bent towards Sam, momentarily forgetting that no one else could hear him. "Sam, remember Phillip did already ask his father to come."

"Where is this graduation?" Ron asked after a lengthy pause.

Sam grinned, but Al frowned. This man wasn't going to change his mind based on a call from a classmate, of that he was sure. His type didn't bend easily, if at all.

"It's at the parade field at Naval Air Station Pensacola," Sam told him, "at 0900." Al smiled paternally at Sam's use of military time and even more so at the fact that he didn't even seem to realize he'd done it.

"I see," Ron returned. "Thank you for the info."

Sam said a polite, formal goodbye and hung up the phone. All the other officer candidates had completed their phone calls and the hall was empty. "See, Al? Does he come?"

"Uh…" Al abused the handlink then shrugged when the information didn't appear. "No data. But I'm assuming not as there's still a 94.3 chance that Phillip quits in three days."

Sam swore softly. "Well maybe he can call his father again tomorrow, and-"

"I think this is it for the phone privileges for the week." Sam huffed in frustration. "Even if it wasn't, he's not going to listen to either one of you, kid. He was just giving you the polite brush-off. Apparently he only yells at family."

"My dad used to be like that," Sam recounted slowly, uncertain of his own facts, grasping for memories.

"Your father?" Al echoed in disbelief. "Really?"

Sam's expression screwed up into tight recollection. "Not like Ron, exactly, but when it came to family…he didn't think other people had to know our business. If Tom or Katie or I were in trouble with him, we'd get it at home, but when we went out into town, Dad always acted like nothing was wrong."

"Why?" asked Al, trying to dredge up his of his own father.

"I think he just felt…it was nobody's business but ours when we weren't in harmony. And also to save both him and us any humiliation."

"Hmm." Al pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I don't think that's Ron's motivation. The way he talked to the kid, I think if it's anyone's good name he's concerned about, it's his own." He tapped the side of the handlink. "Some people are like that with their own children: they think they're owed something because they raised them. I think it's absolutely ludicrous – bringing up your children to think they owe you something."

"Yeah, me, too." Sam stood up abruptly. "What do I do now, Al? I'm out of ideas. Talking to Phillip didn't work, getting Grace to help didn't work, talking to his father didn't work…"

Al sighed and his electric blue tie shimmered in the light. "I don't know, kid. Ziggy is out of ideas, too."

"I wonder what my father would do?" Sam mused and Al realized they'd been spending a lot of this leap contemplating fathers and sons. "He always got us to talk, even when we didn't want to. He could get Phillip to open up."

Al looked at his friend and saw the familiar, looming regret that surfaced from time to time. Regret at leaving his family and his friends, regret that he had no place to call home now. If he didn't curb it now, it could only increase the downward spiral this leap was taking.

"Sam, we'll think of something," was the best he could offer.

"Yeah." The scientist was far from convinced. "We will."

"Really," the hologram continued, trying to drum up a little enthusiasm for the cause, "he's starting to come around. You can tell the difference in him. At the start of the leap he wouldn't say more than two words to anyone. Now he's talking to you, to Grace…"

"We need to find out what makes him quit in three days, Al. Doesn't the Navy keep records of all this?"

Al tapped the 'link again, harder this time. "As hard as it is to believe, there's no paper trail for the 'why', just the 'when'. The Navy cares what happened, but they don't much look at the causes behind it. Bit shortsighted, if you ask me." He squinted at the readout, though it only confirmed what he already knew.

Sam stood up, rubbing his hands anxiously against the khaki slacks. "Okay, I'll…think of something. In the meantime, can you pay his family a visit?

"Why? I can't do anything; they won't be able to see me or hear me."

"I know that. I'm grasping at straws here, but I – I can't think of what else to try, and maybe it'll give me some ideas if I know-"

Al's internal frown deepened. "Okay, I'll see what I can find out," he said reassuringly, and punched out.

July 1998  
Warren, OH

Ron Hutchins' garage was actually pretty close to what Al had pictured. There was room for two cars in it, which was about all that was necessary given that it was a two-man operation. A stocky man stood underneath a car that was jacked up, an oily rag clasped loosely in one hand, a wrench in the other as he reached up to tighten something. He was dressed in working coveralls, stained from years of use on a man who works with his hands for a living. Thick work boots peered out underneath cuffs that were too low and thus frayed and coated beyond hope of ever seeing the original color. A dark blue t-shirt with the sleeves torn off to accommodate the mid-summer heat was pasted to his upper body with sweat. Ron squinted as he looked up into the guts of the automobile, rubbing his chin occasionally against the top of the t-shirt, brushing his two day's worth growth against the rough fabric. The greasy brown hair was short enough that it almost stood on end as he worked and framed a surprisingly rounded face and clear hazel eyes.

Al strolled across the garage, taking in the small lot with four vehicles and room for four more, the tiny office no larger than a bathroom nestled in the alcove between the garage and the actual bathrooms, and the neat, sturdy tool chest in the corner. The building itself was an "L" shape, giving Ron a full view of the entire property.

Momentarily forgetting himself, Al maneuvered around a grease stain, mindful of the new hunter green shoes he'd bought the week before in town. Another man of similar build was leaning under the hood of a blue Buick. This must have been the brother, a fact that Ziggy quickly confirmed. Al leaned in to peer at him. Larry Hutchins was the spitting image of his father, unlike Phillip, who had to take after his mother. The admiral couldn't help but notice that, as he worked, he shot several apprehensive glances towards his father.

_What's that all about?_ Al didn't have to wonder for long.

The handlink squealed as if in fear and Al glanced up to see a lady Ziggy had identified as Margie Hutchins pulling up into the lot, honking the horn, appearing to be ready to drive it directly into the garage. She pulled the car up just short of doing that, got out, and stormed up to her husband. When she spoke, it was so quietly that it belayed the fire in her eyes.

"Ron, what is this I hear about you yelling at our son!?"

"Uh oh," Al murmured, a small grin playing about his features. "If momma ain't happy…"

Larry started and banged the back of his head on the inside of the Buick's hood. He seemed to know his father's eyes were on him without even looking up.

"Called the cops on your dad, did you, kid?" Al asked in bemusement. Ron's ideals didn't seem to be shared by the rest of the family, least of all the raging lady in front of him, a fact which bode well for Phillip and, therefore, Sam. Al made a mental note to mention it to Sam as another tactic to push past Phillip's defenses.

Ron pulled his gaze from his son and pointedly turned away from Margie, resuming his ministrations to the car hanging over his head. He knew better than to ignore his wife completely, though. "I'm not having this conversation, dear. Do you know where he is?"

"He'd be here if you weren't so bull-headed," she said angrily, her hands on her hips as she practically stomped her foot.

Now he finally turned to face her. His voice was still calm, but his eyes flashed with anger. "No he wouldn't. I don't know what happened to that boy – he didn't learn to be that self-centered from me!"

Margie's tone lowered to an equally dangerous pitch. "What are you saying?"

"Oh, boy," Al muttered and heard his sentiments echoed by Larry. The brother leaned further forward under the hood, seeming to wish it would swallow him whole. There was going to be hell to pay for him once the mother was gone, Al was sure.

"I'm not saying anything. I'm just wondering who taught the boy to be so self-serving. Rather than come help the family business, your son ran off just like a child and joined the military."

Margie faltered for a moment and Al suspected this was the first she'd heard of it. Only Larry seemed unsurprised by the news and Al wondered if it was because Ron had told him once he got off the phone, or if Larry had known already. Maybe Phillip had told him?

"He's…my boy?" she stammered, her eyes a little misty.

"That's right. Your **boy**." Ron swung around and returned to his work, though Al could tell he was merely loosening and tightening the same bolt repeatedly.

"Well, when's he gonna be able to come up here?" she pressed, her anxiety letting a slight southern accent through. Al glanced at the handlink and wasn't surprised to note that she'd grown up in Georgia.

"He can come up here when he's ready to take his place, that's when."

Margie blinked back tears and her voice rose again, though it was still unsteady. The accent vanished as if it had never been. "My boy is welcome here whenever the military lets him come. I won't have you making decisions for this entire family."

"I'm the head of the household and I will make the decisions, Margie. Phil knew what he was doing when he turned his back on us and I won't pretend he didn't insult our family." Ron's voice was a low growl and he had abandoned even the pretense of doing work to avoid eye contact.

"Well!" A tremor ran through Margie's voice and then she fell silent.

"What a nozzle," Al muttered under his breath.

Unexpectedly, it was Larry who intervened on Phillip's behalf when words failed his mother. He drew himself up and took several steps towards his parents. "Why is it an insult that he tried to do something better – **different -**" he corrected himself hastily before his father could explode at him "- with his life? Can't you just be proud of him instead of thinking he's doing all this just to get back at you?"

Ron's voice softened and Al could see immediately that, in spite of the man's words and demeanor, he did care deeply for his family. "Son, I am proud of you. You care more about helping the family than you do chasing your own dreams. But your brother…" A world-weary sigh escaped his lips. "Your brother doesn't feel that's important enough. He only wants what is in his head."

"Dad, your business won't suffer. You ran it by yourself for years: I can too, after you're not able. I can take care of you and Mom myself." He advanced another step and Al kept abreast of him, chewing on his cigar thoughtfully. "Why can't we just let him do what he wants to do with his life?"

Ron opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by the honking of a horn as a battered Chevy truck pulled into the lot. A woman got out, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, and waved to Ron, oblivious of the argument she had just interrupted. Ron turned towards his son, then faced his wife, and grunted sharply. "Margie, you go home. We've got a long day ahead of us and we'll want a good dinner when we get there. Just you remember who pays the mortgage every month and it's not your uppity child, it's Larry and I." Having brought up Larry, he turned to face the younger man. "You get back to work, Son. You know as well as I do there's probably a good six hours of work in that truck. Gina would run out of gas every week if it wasn't for her husband. She figures the vehicle only needs attention when it stops running and strands her on the side of the road."

"Like Phillip?" Margie asked, but then turned quickly and returned to her own vehicle, forestalling any other arguments.

Al remained in the garage with Larry, observing his frustrated expression, imagining a similar one must have reflected on his face. He faintly heard Ron saying, "Well, Mrs. Puckett, I'm clean out of bailing wire." He waited for her breathy laugh and then popped the hood on the truck.

"You hang in there," Al told Larry, confidently. "Between you, Margie, and Sam, we'll reconcile this family." He gave a firm nod, then punched out.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

October 2000  
Stallions Gate, NM

Al stretched out in his bed and opened his eyes, blinking sleepily at the room. He was alone; Tina had gotten up hours ago for her shift, he recalled in vague shadowed images. He must have been out for a long time. He yawned and stretched again, trying not to listen as his body popped and creaked in various joints. It had been a long time since he was awakened by something other than Ziggy's sultry voice. He reached out his left hand and lifted his alarm clock, tilting it so he could see the red LEDs. It was 1030.

He sat up in bed, propping the pillows behind his back, progressing to the second stage of waking up, usually consisting of trying not to fall back asleep. As a career military man, he'd spent the better part of three decades up before the sun, but it didn't mean he had to like it. After he retired and the years started to catch up with him, he found it harder and harder to respond to the alarm clock, particularly when Sam's hours and his were so opposite. For example…

"Ziggy, what time is it for Sam?" he asked, stifling a yawn.

"It is 1454, Admiral," she purred. "Do you plan to visit Dr. Beckett any time soon?"

He rolled his eyes. "Yes. Have Gooshie warm up the Imaging Chamber." _Two days._ Two days they had left to get through to Phillip before he gives up on his dream. Sam was making progress, but there was still the matter of the lie he had spun that would make things that much harder to break through. Luckily, Sam had Grace so enamored of him that she would assist in any scheme the time traveler could come up with.

Al smirked at the thought of a young adult chasing after a man twice her age without knowing it. He spared a thought for Andreas and realized he hadn't been in to visit the kid lately. Maybe he would make a quick stop by the Waiting Room before visiting Sam. It wasn't as if he really had much new to tell him, except perhaps the details of the Hutchins' home life. He swung his legs off the side of the bed and stood up slowly, wincing as a few more audible pops echoed down his spine. He padded to the closet and picked out his navy blue suit and blue and green paisley shirt, just so he could top it off with his blue fedora. It was that kind of day. Besides, Sam was getting more frustrated by the minute and he wasn't beyond using any methods at his disposal to brighten or, if that failed, distract the leaper.

He was just fastening the top button of the silk shirt when Tina sauntered in, pulling off her lab coat as she came in the doorway. Al eyed her in the mirror, taking in her lime green tank top that clung in all the right places, and the cream skirt that reached down, straining just to caress mid-thigh. She pulled off her matching green stilettos over Al's moan of protest and came up behind him, eyeing him in the mirror he was facing.

"Bad timing, hon," he remarked, placing the fedora on his head and tilting it over his eyes. "I'm just done getting dressed."

"It was a long shift anyway," she sighed, but slid her hands around his waist. "We need to do a full systems' check after Sam leaps out. We'll have to shut down the main computer to do it."

"How long?" he asked, needlessly adjusting his tie just to give his fingers something to do. He couldn't allow himself to give in to her advances, not right now. Sam needed him first and just because he wasn't in mortal danger didn't mean that maybe Phillip wasn't. The young man didn't deserve to lose his career and perhaps even his life because of his thick-headed father.

"Six hours." The words were businesslike, but the pitch in her voice had dropped an octave.

"Mmm." One more apprehensive tug at the shimmering hunter green tie.

When her hands started to move the direction of her voice, Al reluctantly pulled away and turned to face her. "I should really check on Sam. Haven't been to see him all day."

"Day's early, yet," she mumbled, "and I don't have to go back on for fourteen hours."

"It's not early for Sam. His day's half done."

She dropped her arms to her sides and looked at him, biting her lower lip in a way that made him crazy. What's worse, she knew it made him crazy. "If you're sure…"

His eyes twinkled and he kissed her softly. "It won't take me long. You could catch a nap and I could come back and wake you up."

She pouted and then twisted her face into a smile. "Okay." She licked her lips slowly, then turned and headed for the shower.

Al looked after her. "Oooh, boy." She just did it to get him worked up. He shook his head slowly and walked out of the room before she could change his mind altogether. The hiss of the shower as he closed the door was an indication of her intentions to try.

When he strolled to the elevator, he found it was already occupied. Verbena was standing in the corner, a mischievous smile on her face as if she had known she would run into him. He paused on the threshold of the elevator and then shook his head mournfully. "Why is it that of all the people in this complex, I always seem to run into you, and always here? Where I can't get away," he added sourly, entering the unit completely.

Her smile didn't waiver. "If you took the stairs you wouldn't run into me. Probably be a good idea, anyway. I hear the doctors keep telling you that you need to get more exercise. And **not**," she added, holding up a hand to forestall the comment she knew had to be coming, "just in the bedroom."

He crossed his arms defiantly. The only thing he hated more than knowing he was under Verbena's watchful eye for his mental health was knowing she was keeping track of his physical as well. He had added a few pounds in the last month, and not in muscle mass. Before he realized it, he was sucking in his gut, slight though it may have been. It wasn't his fault, though – ever since they'd hired that great new cook in the cafeteria…the one with the amazing…dinner rolls, he'd been more prone to sit and eat a full meal. Something **else** the docs had been bugging him about, he noted mentally. Instead of pointing all this out, he raised an eyebrow and said, "Well I don't see you hiking up the stairs. Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?"

Her expression was carefully neutral, but her eyes danced. "Admiral, I spend one hour in the gym six times a week. It's more like the fine bone china calling the kettle black."

His other eyebrow hiked up to join its brother as he surveyed the respective colors of their skin and grinned at the irony of his statement. Her face gave him no clue if it was intentional or not. He hit the button for the Control Room level and the elevator lurched to an unsteady climb. It made him anxious the way the thing shook and he mentally added it to his list of items that required repair.

"How's Sam?" she asked without preamble before he could take the conversation in a different direction, leaning back against the waist-high metal bar that ran horizontally around the length of the cab.

_How's Sam?_ Five years it had been, and Al was getting sick of hearing that question. Twenty times a day, from Verbena to Donna to Tina… All memory of excitement and sexual tension drained off his skin as if he was conducting one of his ritual drives through the desert. "He's fine," he replied simply, straining to keep irritation out of his voice. Some days, he thought he should publish a Project Quantum Leap Newsletter. Instead of surf indices, temperature, and chance of rain, it could have date of the leap, location, and perhaps a risk assessment of either Sam or himself losing his sanity. If nothing else it would save him the trouble of providing a situation report throughout the day. "Kid's a little frustrated with the way this leap is going, though."

Verbena gazed evenly at him out of liquid brown eyes matching the rich tone of her skin. "How's that?" she asked innocently. Al knew better: she was one of the slickest psychiatrists he'd ever come across, and he'd seen many. She could get you to start opening up about how long it took you to potty train and any sexual dreams you'd had about your mother before you even realized what you were doing.

He swallowed a sigh, determined not to allow more fodder for his file, even though he knew that, as far as psychiatrists went, Verbena could be trusted. But it was four inches thick as it was. "We're havin' some trouble getting through to Phillip. I'm worried he'll drop out before Sam gets a chance to stop him." The cab shuddered to a halt and the doors parted to reveal Gooshie manning the Control Room alone. Verbena stepped out first, leaving Al to trail in her wake. "Anything new, Goosh?" he asked the foul-breathed programmer, reclaiming his jaunty gait from when he had first awakened, shaking off any residual annoyance from the conversation with Verbena. After all, woman was just trying to do her job, something she generally excelled at.

"No, Admiral," the little man stammered, passing the multihued handlink. "Dr. Beckett's vitals are normal, no changes in history." He coughed slightly. "Did you…sleep well?"

Al paused in the act of calibrating the 'link to look the man in the eyes. As long as Al had known him, Gooshie always had a nervous tick: he would blink one eye, then the other, tightly, in rapid succession. Al narrowed his eyes and Gooshie's tick swung into form. _Blink. Blink._ Al exhaled in exasperation. Tina must have been sharing her plans of creative ways to awaken him. While he loved how adventurous the woman was – and there was **nothing** she wouldn't try – he wished she wouldn't spread her plans across the complex. If she told everyone what her intentions were, how was he supposed to brag about the encounter later? "Fine, Gooshie. Fine. Is the Imaging Chamber ready to go?"

Gooshie had obviously been expecting a lewd response followed by a tale of why he was venturing out of his quarters so late, and the unexpected enmity unnerved him. "Y-yes."

"Good." Without realizing he was doing it, Al mimicked Gooshie's tick, blinking the irritation away so he could be of more use to Sam, and entered the chamber. Al caught Sam, once again, in the middle of class. He saw the sets of damp working khakis that spoke of physical exercise prior to the morning's lessons and was glad, yet again, that a hologram couldn't smell. The scientist looked vaguely bored and Al peered over his shoulder to see the title of the chapter: Personnel Administration. "Ooh, Sam, this is right up my alley," he crowed, stopping in his study of the material to study the instructor instead. When he saw it was a male second class petty officer instead of the bombshell from before, he shrugged and turned back to Sam. The leaper was glaring at him. "What?" he asked innocently.

"Must you do that?" Sam hissed out of the corner of his mouth, putting a hand to his lips to hide the words from other bored classmates whose eyes were perusing the room.

"What? Oh, sorry," he amended, but he didn't bother to rearrange his expression into one of apology. "I just meant that… people…evaluations…I do that all the time at PQL, y'know?"

Sam shot him another dirty look.

"Okay, okay." He poked at the handlink halfheartedly. When leaps dragged on, Sam tended to get antsy and more prone to be short tempered. "Do you wanna start some sign language, or do you wanna find someplace where we can talk?" Sam glowered darkly and Al preoccupied himself with unwrapping a cigar so he didn't have to meet the glare.

Discreetly, Sam slipped out of his seat and joined Al in the hallway. A quick scan revealed it was empty. "Where have you been?" Sam demanded.

Al stuck the end of the cigar in his mouth. "Whaddya mean where have I been?" he asked around it. "I've been trying to find a way to save Phillip."

Sam's anger receded slightly. "Yeah, well, so have I. You find out anything at the parents'?"

Al rummaged for his lighter and touched the flame to the end of the cigar, pausing to taste the sultry flavor before answering. "Actually, I have. Daddy dearest is the only one who's really opposed to what Phillip is doing. The brother and the mother are all for it."

The leaper nodded curtly. Al didn't take offense: he knew Sam's impatience was due to the leap, not him. "That's great, Al, but how will that help me?"

"Sam, you're the one that's got this crazy job, you tell me."

"Maybe…I can try to call his mother?"

Al rolled his eyes and pulled out his cigar. For a genius, sometimes Sam could be pretty dense. "She's already trying to convince the rock that she's right – what's a phone call going to accomplish? No, no, Sam, just let them work things out on their own."

"I guess you're right." Sam scuffed at the floor with his leathers. Waiting had always been hard on the kid. Even when they were creating Project Quantum Leap, pending funding approvals and committee votes had never been his strongest point. After eight years in hell, Al was an expert at waiting. "This is crazy; I can talk people off ledges – literally! And I can't get one lonely kid to talk to me. I was sad and lonely a lot when I was growing up because I didn't fit in. I should be able to talk to him!"

"You also had a family to come home to that supported everything you did," Al pointed out, not for the first time. "Give yourself a break, Sam." His eyes lit up. "Hey, maybe you can go find that sleek, yummy petty officer from before… you're not an officer, yet, is that still fraternization?" he asked coyly, punching random buttons on the handlink as if trying to call up the information.

"Very funny, Al," Sam remarked, rolling his eyes in the expected response.

"Who's Al?" asked a voice from behind them and both men jumped. Phillip was standing just outside of the class and a quick glance in the door confirmed that it was break time.

"What?" Sam asked in feigned innocence. "Oh, nobody, I was just talking to myself. How – how are you doing?" he fumbled, trying to draw attention from his behavior.

"Me? Oh, I'm fine." Phillip was lying; that much was easy to see. In some small way, Al was reminded of himself when he had first met Sam. Sam could coax his way in and Al would slam the door on him, not wanting comfort or a way out. Then Sam would work his way to cracking that door again, but as soon as Al realized it was happening, the he would block the efforts again. If Sam was going to get through to Phillip, he would have to get him to open up without entirely realizing he was doing it. And then he'd have to wedge his foot in the door.

"What does your mother think of all you're doing?" Sam asked as casually as he could.

"Oh, good, Sam," Al said. Inducing Phillip to come clean on his own hadn't worked and, as long as he kept adding to the barrier, it would be that much harder for him to climb over it himself. Al shook his head slightly, erasing the conflicting metaphors. He looked carefully at Phillip, forgetting for a moment what Sam said or what he heard from the parents and just looked at the young man. The kid wore sadness and rejection around his shoulders like a mantle and Al knew from personal experience that the only way he would break free of it was by consciously wanting to. He could listen to his father, or he could make the conscious choice to listen to himself, his mother, and his older brother. He had decided physically to pursue the path he wanted, but he never decided mentally to do so, and so he wavered back and forth. It was that indecision that would prompt him to leave Officer Candidate School.

Phillip, however, wasn't fooled by Sam's prodding. "Why are you always asking me about my family?" he asked defensively.

"I'm just…"

"You're just trying to be his shipmate, his buddy, his pal!" Al supplied cheerfully, waving his arms in the air enthusiastically.

Sam stopped, momentarily flustered. "I'm just trying to get to know you, to be your friend. Isn't that part of what this whole thing is supposed to be about? Teaching us to rely on each other?"

There had only been a few times so far that Sam had successfully cajoled Phillip into opening up, even just a little. For the first time, he had succeeded in getting him riled up.

"I don't need to tell you about my mother to establish a 'class bond'," he stated firmly, the quotation marks around the words 'class bond' clearly evident in his tone. He actually managed to pronounce them clearly. He took a heaving breath that gradually slowed as he let it out. "Look, I know you're just trying to be friendly, but you don't understand me and I don't know why you'd want to. I wish you'd just stop trying." He turned on his heel and left leaper and hologram in his proverbial dust.

"That didn't go so well, Sam," Al stated unnecessarily. He thought again about fathers and sons; he thought again about his own father.

The look the scientist turned on him left little doubt as to what was going through his mind. "Al…"

Al switched tactics abruptly. Sam didn't need a comedian. He didn't need false reassurances. He just needed to know that Al understood. "I know, pal. I'll go back and talk to Beeks again. Maybe she'll finally have come up with a brilliant idea or two, okay?"

Sam shrugged indifferently. "Okay."

Al nodded firmly, opened the Door, and stepped through. Verbena was standing at the bottom of the ramp, her hands on her hips. "I heard that, Admiral," she scolded.

He skipped off the end of the ramp and kissed her cheek. "Sorry, hon. Sam needed things light."

"No luck?" she guessed.

"Nope. Nada, zero, zilch, zip. Phillip just got angry when Sam approached him."

A small crease appeared in her normally smooth skin between her eyes. "Angry?"

He shrugged and couldn't see why Verbena found this significant. _Shrinks!_ "Yeah." He tossed the link onto the nearest console, where it landed with an indignant shriek, and folded his arms. "Angry. You know angry, right?"

Her enigmatic smile drove him to his own bout of anger, but she spoke before he could verbalize the frustration. "He's reacting. Sam's getting through to him."

Al cast a wary look at the ceiling. "Ziggy, what are Phillip's odds of quitting?"

"96.5, Admiral," she replied with atypical brevity.

"See?"

"In 26 hours," Ziggy added sweetly.

"What?" Al was genuinely startled. "I thought we had two days."

"We did. Dr. Beckett changed history."

Al crossed his arms and lowered his chin defiantly, turning to stare at Verbena. "Al," she began, "he is getting through to him. He has to finish breaking through before-"

"Stuff it, Beeks," Al countered, the words harsher than the tone. "We've tried this your way with all this psycho mumbo-jumbo, but now we're gonna try it my way. No more beating around the bush, we be direct with this kid."

"What, you're just going to have Sam charge in like a bull in a china shop? You could really do damage?"

"What's it going to do?" he questioned emphatically. "Everything we've tried has only moved up the date this guy gives in. It's not working. The worst that can happen is it'll move it up a little more, and I'm willing to take that risk. I think Sam will be, too. He's…" He swallowed a shaky breath. "He's getting tired of being in boot camp." _He gets more and more impatient the longer he's out there alone. How do you fix that one, Dr. Beeks?_

She seemed to see straight into his mind. "I'll be in the Control Room or the waiting room for the rest of the day, Admiral. In case you need anything."

July 1998  
Pensacola, FL

Sam tried several more times to talk to Phillip, but the young man seemed fed up. He stared out the window for the remainder of classes, and even seemed so distracted that the customary look of apprehension that usually came over his face just before they left the safety of the academic building to venture out into the heart of Drill Instructor Territory utterly failed to appear. He was lost in his own universe and, to Sam, that seemed bad. He had to be drawn out, but he wouldn't speak to any of his classmates anymore.

Sam shared his concern with Grace in vague dialogue, but she seemed to think if they just left him alone, he'd come around in his own time. Sam knew better. She was more than eager to discuss the situation at length had Sam desired to do likewise. _Maybe Al was right about her. Maybe she does have a thing for Andreas._ He recalled Al saying that Andreas was engaged, so he couldn't let anything happen there. He couldn't jeopardize two people's happiness for the sake Grace's crush, if he was even right about that.

Al popped back in moments before taps to notify Sam of the bad news: he was down to less than a day. He made one more attempt to engage the candidate in conversation, to no avail. Their other two roommates gave them both a wide berth, uncertain of the situation, but unwilling to involve themselves. Phillip, at least, was still shining everyone's leathers; everyone's but Sam's, that is.

As usual, the following day afforded little chance for talking and Sam found himself distracted by other tasks, though the thought of Phillip's impending fate weighed heavily on his mind. Al visited once, mid-morning, solely to confirm that nothing had changed and that Phillip's career, if not his life, was at stake. A short argument approaching heated ensued. Sam felt bad about that now, knowing it had arisen from his own short temper borne of his frustrations. He just hoped Al understood that.

Now he sat on the floor in the middle of the room, next to the chair he couldn't use, and polished his shoes. He was still bad at it, he reflected as he paused to look at the dim sheen on the black leather shoes, but Phillip had stopped speaking to him completely. The day's events were nearly over and Phillip was folding his clothes for the next inspection, pointedly ignoring his roommates.

Sam clenched his jaw painfully and wracked his brain. He had to do something, pull some rabbit out of his hat, anything!

He couldn't let Phillip throw away his life!


	10. Chapter 9

**OCS**

**Chapter 9**

October 2000  
Stallions Gate, NM

"Hey, kid."

Andreas sat cross-legged on the bed and glanced up when Al entered the room. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The observer was in his dress whites, complete with cover, sword, and gloves. Al stepped forward, the medals clinking on his chest, catching the dim lighting in the waiting room, casually tossing years of distinguished service into light patterns on the wall.

Andreas hesitated a second longer, then snapped to attention. Unlike their first meeting, however, he didn't appear apprehensive. It was, in the face of centuries of military tradition, a gesture of respect, not just for the uniform, but for the man he had come to know, even a little.

"This is going to be over soon, for better or for worse." Al cocked his head to one side. "You'll be going home." He cleared his throat, nervously. "I wanted to give you a proper sendoff before you went."

"Yes, sir."

Al raised his arm in a salute to the young man he had come to admire and respect. "Good luck to you, son."

"Thank you, admiral." Andreas' distant expression wavered for an instant and a ghost of a smile crossed his lips and took up station in his eyes.

Rear Admiral Calavicci turned on his heel smartly and left the Waiting Room.

July 1998  
Pensacola, FL

A rectangle of white light, pure and blinding anyone who could see it to the contents behind it, appeared in Sam's room. Sam glanced up and then returned to his work, long ago having accepted that he would never catch even a glimpse into the world he had left behind. Before he could muster up the courage to apologize, Al took the cigar he had out of his mouth and blew a small stream of smoke up into the air, where it promptly disappeared from sight. "Hey, kid. Sorry about earlier. This leap has been a little stressful."

Sam smiled. "Yeah, I'm sorry, too. This leap is hard: not fighting for my life hard, y'know, but hard."

"I understand." He heaved a heavy breath. "Well, where's Phillip?"

Sam slapped the ruler down on the table harder than he had intended. "I don't know, I think he's off in Grace's room studying. He won't listen to me anymore, Al. I don't know how to stop him." He waved a hand about the room as if to encompass the entire training environment. "I don't even know who he would drop-on-request to! We're done for the day. He seems angry at me, but not like he's about to quit."

Al pulled out the handlink, whacked it a few times, and then pocketed it again. "Ziggy doesn't know and I don't have any bright ideas. I'll just stick around anyway, see if I can help you figure it out."

"Thanks, Al."

Al rocked back on his heels, nursing his cigar as if it was a woman. "So, Sam," he proceeded casually, which was Sam's first clue to get his guard up. "Have you been able to conduct, uh, Pass and Review on that beautiful, blonde-"

Their drill instructor's voice broke into the conversation, the raspy voice echoing around the barren room. "Class 14-98, in the p-way,**now**!"

Sam dropped everything he was doing and ran out of the door, keeping along the right side of the hallway as he had been taught and coming to attention as he came up next to Grace. Phillip, he noted with his peripheral vision, was on the other side of her. Al trailed them out and stood in the middle of the hallway in front of Sam. He had the handlink out again, but it didn't seem to be giving him what he wanted to see. He was pounding it mercilessly.

"Mail call," Burles rasped and began calling out names.

Al was still beating up on the equipment when suddenly he stopped and realization shone in his eyes. "Sam…" he murmured, but Sam had already come to the same conclusion: this had to be when it happened.

"Hutchins!" Burles hollered and Phillip went forward after a second's hesitation. He probably wasn't expecting to have his name called. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Phillip waiting for Burles to present the letters, but the drill instructor wasn't moving. "You've got a postcard. Read it! Push!" he added to the rest of them.

Sam joined in a chorus of "Push-ups, aye, sir," and went down.

"Sam," Al fretted as two other officer candidates did push-ups right through his image, "this is bad. This is really bad. Nothing good can be in that post card."

Over the sound of twenty people counting cadence and repetitions, Sam could barely hear Phillip's shaky voice reading whatever was scrawled on the postcard. Al moved off to read over his shoulder.

"Dear…Son," he stammered and the Marine called for him to read louder. "I…call you son, but you are not my son. You do not come home because…" His voice faltered and Sam felt his pulse increase in a way that had nothing to do with the physical exercise.

"Sam, Sam!" he heard Al yelling, clear and pitched with anxiety. "He's going to do it, Sam! He's going to DOR now! He can't take it back once he's said it – you've got to **do** something, anything! Sam?!"

Sam's mind reeled and he could only think to do one thing. He leaped to his feet and, as Phillip dropped the postcard to his side, he yelled hastily, desperately to cover any words he would utter. "Officer Candidate Foster, class 14-98 requests permission to speak to-" he took in a gasping breath "-Class Drill Instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Burles, United States Marine Corps!"

Al stopped in his frantic motions and even Phillip was still. "Hey, that was really good, Sam," he said, astonished.

The counting of the rest of the class continued, but was more subdued as they witnessed the drama unfolding in front of them.

Sam suddenly realized that was as far as he had formulated the instant plan. He had no clue where to go from here. "What?" Burles growled and Sam met his piercing blue gaze for an instant and, suddenly, the leaper realized something: Burles was grateful to him for interrupting. The drill instructor's job was to make them all stronger, and he couldn't stop what he had started, but once he realized the content of the postcard, the harshness of a father who would not only say or write such things, but do it on the back of a 19 cent postcard, he didn't want Phillip to have to read it any more than Sam or Al did.

Desperate for something to help break up the tension, to stop Phillip from making his mistake, Sam stammered out the only thing he could think of, "Sir, this officer candidate requests a head call."

Burles advanced on him so quickly and with such fierceness that Sam wondered if the flash of gratitude he saw in the man's eyes had been his imagination. The man stared at him for an uncomfortable five seconds, and then took off down the hallway, leaving the building. Someone called out, "Attention on deck, standby," but Sam was too numb with relief to answer with the multitude when they responded, "Good evening, sir!"

The candidates started to break it up and head back to their rooms, casting looks at Phillip as they went. Sam waited until the crowd parted, watching the young man carefully. Al was fiddling with the handlink again. Phillip slowly shook himself out of his daze and lifted his right hand, the hand that held the horrible post card. His mouth open slightly, he finished reading it. He closed his eyes, but didn't lower his hand.

Al had finished wrestling with Ziggy and the handlink once again disappeared into his pocket. "He doesn't try again, Sam, but he doesn't have a stellar time in the Navy, either. He doesn't qualify his first tour and they're in the process of putting him out." He shook his head. "Poor kid."

Grace came up alongside him and touched his shoulder carefully. "Phillip? Are you okay?"

He laughed slightly, but there was no humor in the sound. Sam stepped next to Grace, looking at Phillip with concern. "I feel like an idiot," he muttered.

"Phillip…no," she countered, but it sounded unconvincing to all of them.

Phillip made the same hollow noise. "My dad isn't a pilot," he confessed, refusing to meet anyone's gaze. "He is an auto mechanic."

Grace seemed genuinely puzzled. "Why did you lie? There's nothing wrong with that."

Phillip started to answer, but then just shook his head and stared down at the postcard. Sam could see his eyes moving and knew he was reading it again.

"It's okay, Phillip," he said gently. "You can tell us. We're classmates, shipmates. We're a team. That's what this is all about, isn't it? This thing we're doing here, getting yelled at all the time, doing things that make us miserable? We're a team," he stated. Al nodded approvingly but kept silent, waiting to see what would happen.

"My dad, he wants me to join the family business. Thing is, that's all he wants. If I don't do that…then I'm not…"

"You'll always be his son, kid," Al intoned fiercely. "Sam, we need to get bullheaded moron Ron Hutchins' head on straight."

"How?" Sam asked, momentarily forgetting himself.

"How what?" Grace responded.

"How…could you think that? What about the rest of your family – what do they say?"

"My older brother, Larry, he's the good son. He stayed to help dad even though he got a full scholarship to Penn State. He was always real smart – smarter than me, but he didn't want those things. Or at least, he didn't want it bad enough to defy dad. I didn't get a full scholarship – I didn't get any academic scholarship, but I wanted something else. Why couldn't it have been the other way 'round?" he demanded.

"I don't know," Sam responded. "What about your mother?"

"She'd love me no matter what. But she wouldn't go against my father, not really. They argue real loud, but in the end she goes along with him."

"That's terrible," Grace breathed.

"Listen, Phillip, you can't change your father," Sam said gently. He watched as Phillip's eyes flicked towards the postcard again. He was starting to hate that thing. "But maybe you're selling your mother short. Don't shut your dad out, but make it clear that you're your own person, then the next step is up to him. But why don't you call your mother, invite her to the graduation, huh?"

Al tucked the cigar in the corner of his mouth and tapped a few buttons. "That's good, Sam. At the next phone session he calls his mother at home and invites her. She comes to the graduation and brings Larry along with her."

"I guess I could do that," Phillip considered.

Sam paused. No internal tingle that signified the beginning of a leap-out. He still had something left to do. "Sure. Give her a call," he repeated, shooting Al a furtive, "Why haven't I leaped?" look.

"I don't know what's left." Al answered the unvoiced question. "Gooshie, we need some answers, here," he called. "Phillip's just fine now, right?"

Phillip looked yet again at the postcard and this time Grace snorted in exasperation. "You have to stop listening to other people, Phillip, even if it is your family," she stated, snatching the postcard away. She tore it in half over his gasp of protest and then handed it back to him. "Here, you try."

Slowly his look of astonishment morphed into a tiny smile and he tore it into four pieces and shoved the fragments into a pocket that was never supposed to be used. "Feels kind of good," he confessed and even managed a laugh, a genuine one, this time.

"Yeah," she affirmed. Then she took his left hand in her right, leaned in, and kissed him gently on the lips. When she pulled back her eyes were shining and she hauled him off towards her room saying, "Come'on. If we don't get studying, we'll never be officers!"

Sam smiled after them. "She wasn't into me – Andreas – at all, was she, Al?"

Al turned to watch them disappear into her room. "I guess not. We misread her. According to Ziggy, they're engaged to be married."

"That's great, Al." He thought back to the harsh words Ron had written to his son and his glee turned to sorrow. "He and his father never make up, do they?" he asked.

"Well," Al said, tapping a few buttons, "I guess his mother works on him – great woman, if you ask me – and even though he doesn't come to the graduation, he eventually comes around. He shows up for the pinning ceremony when Phillip gets warfare qualified."

Sam didn't exactly know what that meant, having only been in the Navy a few days, now, but it sounded good to him. "That's great, Al."

"Yep. I guess it's time to leap." He winked. "The military's really not so bad, is it, Sam?"

Sam drew himself up, squared his shoulders, and stood perfectly at attention: thumbs on trouser seams, feet at a 45º angle, his chin tilted up, and a perfect thousand yard stare in his eyes. "Attention on deck!" he barked smartly. "Good evening, Admiral."

Al grinned. "See ya next leap, Sam."

Sam's self was swept away in a flash of blue light.


End file.
